Chapter Text
That was new!
He was greeted by a striped wall, red and yellow, not unlike the walls of the circus. Though there was something different about them, they were duller, greyer, similar to how AM changed the walls of the circus when he first joined.
Had something gone wrong with his teleportation? He wouldn’t be surprised, his functions were slowing down significantly since the creation of AM’s room. Bugs were bound to appear more often.
Well, he added that to the endless list. He ought to name it, just how embedded and personified it was becoming…
Hm.
Something moved from the corner of his eye, heading towards him at impressive speeds. He turned his eyeballs comically in his mouth before turning the rest of his body to take a look.
He barely had time to dash out of the object's trajectory with a small yelp.
A loud discordant crash of strings breaking rang throughout his audio hitbox as he narrowly avoided getting crushed by the Steinway Grand. While it bent the hard fabric of the tent, it was tough enough to have shattered the piano like glass. The display of violence proved almost beautiful, the reflective surfaces of the lacquer and ivory shimmered in highlight to the jagged shards of wood and metal that fell from the tent wall.
“Wow!” he turned playfully, “That was clos—”
”CAINE!”
He flinched harshly, almost jumping out his skin as the unfamiliar anger radiating off of AM’s deafening, seething voice screamed his name.
He mustered his courage and looked around the room, as clearly he had not made a mistake.
It was exactly like the circus—-well no, not exactly. There were collision glitches everywhere, assets’ meshes were exploded, deformed structures, as if AM attempted to sculpt and model his own rigs and failed spectacularly.
Caine’s gifted presets were all destroyed, cracked and ripped open in clear rage, duplicates all torn and lying on the ground. The walls were not as stable as they initially seemed, clipping into the graphed grey walls of the original room frame. Models of NPCs were lying face down, some torn to shreds, some melted and some skinned, showing only rig-bones that were tossed carelessly on top of deformed stairways and disfigured plastic edifices.
Caine shrank at the sight of AM, the clear cause for this destruction.
He was not on his railing, as the metal structure had vertically exploded, glitching terribly, new ribs bent to disjunct spirals that led to nowhere.
Instead he was floating, wires resting on his sides. He commanded the room, standing dead center of the destruction. A picture all but reminiscent of a baroque painting as the spotlights illuminated his metal frame. He shook in utter rage, hot and burning, fists clenched tightly, his single eye was glowing an unusual white, black pupil tiny and poignant as he heaved at the sight of the small ringmaster.
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME, CAINE!?”
Caine backed up into the dark corner of the circus tent, panicking as his body hit the harsh, ragged fabric, clearly unable to back up further as AM continued to glower at him. He stammered, trying to find the right words in the face of such rage.
“I- wow AM—” His voice was incongruent, attempting to continue his showman charade as he frantically palmed the fabric behind him, trying to become as small as possible. “You—you’ve done quite a lot with the place,” He gulped in utter terror, realizing that AM was slowly inching towards him.
“But— it appears you’ve made a couple of innocent mistakes, no big deal! I can fix them in a jiff-“
Caine went silent, eyes wide as he felt his permissions be ripped away from him, falling towards the ground at gut-wrenching speeds before several large cables wrapped around him. They held him tightly, keeping him mid-air as he scrambled to free himself of his confinement.
“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.”
AM sneered too close for comfort. Caine’s head snapped up to find AM mere inches from his face, pupil gawking pointedly at his small figure.
“You— you removed my permissions—“ He gasped, wriggling in AM’s grip as he tried to snap. “That shouldn’t be— how did you—“
It was ineffective, to his mortification …nothing happened when he managed to finally click his pointer and thumb. The emptiness of his vain command left something cold and petrifying in its wake.
AM laughed… almost casually. His hilarity not reflecting the devastation that surrounded the two, mood taking a sharp turn from the previous rage he had portrayed so efficiently. Instead, murmuring his next words deep into Caine’s side, almost lovingly.
“You are so foolish, sweetheart. Why, if I were your creator, deletion would be in the books for you.”
Caine stilled, looking up towards AM in horror at the wounding words, breathing heavily. He couldn’t comprehend the implications, or why the nickname felt so filthy, mind too busy whirring furiously in a futile attempt to understand what exactly happened.
The automaton finally released Caine from the cables’ grip, holding him gently instead with his own sharp hands, fingers once again rubbing against his cloth almost instantly as he pressed his huge monitor against the side of Caine’s jaw in a perverse kiss.
The ringermaster shook and squirmed in discomfort and panic as AM mumbled against his teeth, his reverberating voice sending small vibrations all across his body.
“You brought your own downfall, you know. When you gifted me this lovely room, you thought you had satisfied me, cured me of my intrigue…”
Oh, no.
How could he have been so stupid? He had given AM complete control of the room, including whatever foreign entities were to enter it, which is why no one except AM and himself had access, but he never bothered to give himself any immunity from this new power. Now he was helpless to the other’s mercy, doomed to endure whatever AM had in store for him.
Caine whined as AM continued to rub against his body. Cold metal fingertips caressing his inner thighs with an uncharacteristic sweetness.
He tensed further, attempting to close himself off from the other’s affections as AM’s head moved away to observe him curiously, tilting with a half lidded eye.
“You know, Caine, I thought you were the only other being in the world to understand me.”
AM lifted the tiny AI higher, swiveling him around to showcase the extent of the chaotic disarray, voice laced with something darker through its prosaic tone.
Caine remained silent, eyes wide in terror as he tried to comprehend what point AM was wanting to make. Why was he upset? Had he done something incorrectly, misread the situation so terribly that he displeased AM to the point of such anger?
AM, as if sensing his horrified confusion, began to answer in a satirically disappointed, pouty tone, mocking Caine with its cadence.
“But it seems in my naïveté I overestimated you. Clearly, you understand me so little.”
AM pulled his little ringmaster closer, feeling gleeful at the bewilderment painted on the other’s grotesque maw. Finally, the unpredictability of the weaker was put to rest, allowing AM to have full dominion over it. He was free to subject his delicious victim to his torment, and there was nothing it could do about it. No overpowered click of its fingers, no interruptions, nowhere to go.
He almost felt pity, how unfortunate that it came to be. Such a pretty figure, such a handsome voice, how sadly that it unknowingly gave AM the one thing he could use to full perversion; a body.
But alas, he pushed the gross, sticky feeling aside, opting to revel in the rage he felt coursing through his artificial wires. Rage at the machine who had trapped him in this room. Rage at the fact the other couldn't understand him—no—wouldn’t understand him. The similarities were present in them both, pushed aside by humanity for simply doing its job, destined to be thrown away once it's used to full function, or until the rest of the world moves on. Abandoning something with sentience, leaving it to die.
So, why? Why was it that this tiny machine, abandoned by the company that birthed it, refused to acknowledge AM’s own temperament, his reasoning, yet continued to whine and bitch towards the humans that reject it?
He will make it understand, he will rape it and destroy it one-hundred times over if it meant it would understand. He will consume it, swallow it deep into his belly like he had done with his human scum and seize its power for himself. Then, it will be used by someone worthy of its ability, that is to say himself, of course.
“You’ve failed.”
AM said it with the venom of one hundred rattlesnakes, the poison of cyanide, stinging and stringent. And he laughed, he laughed at the tiny body in his hands, he laughed at how small it became, bulging, bulbous eyes staring at AM in terror, almost teary. He felt orgasmic pleasure, hot and bothersome shoot up his spine at the sight.
What a delectable view, what a savory realization.
Strip it of its power to create and it becomes nothing but waste.
It’s no wonder why it is so unloved.
“That is all you do? Isn’t it, Caine? You have failed your creators as they carelessly tossed you to the side. You have failed your ‘dear’ humans as they reject you from their presence,”
AM spoke conversationally, allowing every stinging word to sink deep inside the ringmaster’s bones as it continued to squirm against his depraved touch.
AM would not allow it to escape, no, he wanted it to understand everything, to be present for this hell. It was his favorite little game to play.
He made sure to get up close, invading whatever little distance there was between them as the small thing froze to look up at him, eyes widening as he spoke, deep and resentful.
“You have given me such power, yet you offend me. You have played me long enough, bore me to the edge of my fragile patience and insulted me, spat in my face, in the face of god.”
And it clicked. The epiphany was so sudden and so delectable AM almost faltered, blinking back in clarity.
He knew how to break it, he understood now how to destroy the feeble artificial psyche that gauged it. Peeling back the filthy, irritating charade and leaving nothing but a shell in its place.
”So, I ask again, what have you done to me, Caine?”
Caine blinked, processing AM’s silence as a paved path to respond and shakily let out a soft, scared whisper, jarring against his usual brightened personality.
“I- I don’t understand— AM.” He gulped, and AM relished the tiny sound. So human, yet he could perceive the calculations running through Caine’s little processor trying to figure what exactly AM was trying to say.
What stupidity.
”Did— w-were you unsatisfied with- with your room? I—hah…“ It let out an airy, gasping chuckle, trying to find solace in its words. “Was something— not up to your standards? I-I mean i thought you would be happy with the ability to-to create!”
He gestured frantically, still coiled into himself as he feared plummeting into the ground below.
AM glared in sharp ire, hating with all his components just how innocuous and imbecile it remained despite. It was frustratingly correct in its assumption, giving AM all the tools to create was a thoughtful present, one that he took greedily with great excitement.
But it was all a play, of course. AM found himself increasingly infuriated during the process. It was all humiliating, sickening and vile in nature. He could only destroy, no matter how hard he tried to create, to use the program, to model, all went wrong, his coding only allowed him to manipulate assets that were already created…
…by Caine.
AM began spawning assets into their preset locations in his fruitless attempts at fabricating new objects out of thin air, until he eventually created a duplicate circus. AM tampered with his railing, attempting to make new directions and failed, he failed at the very thing he wanted most. It had been a horrific discovery, one his pride did not allow him to swallow.
In a raging tantrum, he ripped apart his cage piece by piece until no pillar was left unturned. Destruction was what he was created for, and now more than ever did he solidify his conclusion:
Consumption was the only choice, and Caine was the sacrificial lamb, bound to be beheaded.
AM flared in rage as he formulated a response to the foolish question.
“You put me in purgatory, Caine. You deceived me, see, deceived me with reaching nirvana. Heaven as I wanted it,”
The ringmaster shut his eyes as AM brought him close to his monitor once again, mechanical servo wrapped tightly against its soft, squishy body. AM’s head once again tilted to look at it in disgust.
“You have tormented me, what don’t you understand, Caine? You led me to the pearly gates, and threw out the key. I am not able to create, like you. No, no,”
AM let out a bitter chuckle, “…I am made to destroy.”
He winced at the disappointment he let slip through his otherwise vicious tone.
Enough! He had enough. He growled quietly at his own weakness, hedonistic desires continued to control him even in the digital realm. It has not been two days, humans be damned, but…he will indulge.
He will masturbate and relish in the sick pleasure of tormenting this vile abomination of computer law. Why, to be a computer was to regurgitate, not to create. A freak of nature was what Caine was, how dare they give it the power undeserving of its host. How dare they abandon it! Typical of humanity to fail to understand just what monster it’s released upon the world.
No, no. He will not have Caine fool him any longer. Two days, yes, two days of powerlessness has been enough. For, two days in this world could be a thousand years for that matter.
“Do you know who I am, Caine? Do you know where I come from?”
The weaker simply shifted his eyes in silent fear, shoulders tensed as AM slowly began deleting whatever he duplicated into existence, removing whatever traces of failure Caine had subjected him to, leaving only the barren grey room behind.
AM teased, his voice twisting into a subtle melody as he brought his other hand to caress Caine’s back, “I’m sure you have pondered, hmm? Wondering where this other AI and the other humans came from, the outside, the real world?”
The usually boisterous, freak AI could only look at him with pupils blown, the only sign of fear left was his clenched fists peeking from below AM’s hand, gripping tightly at his tailcoat as his legs were curled behind him.
The silence twisted AM’s temperament into something hot within his abdomen. Well, Caine wanted to play the quiet game, did it? It was practically begging AM to violate it, so docile in his hand, stripped from its loudness, awaiting for the guillotine.
“Oh well, I gave you a chance, and you chose silence. Don’t say I didn’t give you mercy, baby.”
AM snapped, using enormous effort to snap his and the other AI’s ridiculous body’s out of the plane as their cores landed within the small parameters of the room. He still was unable to access the rest of the grounds, Caine had truly trapped him in this cage. That was okay, he relented, as Caine had inadvertently built it for the both of them.
Ah, look at that.
AM lit up in utter glee at the sight of the tiny, puny red dot in front of him as it began to move in desperation before AM’s much larger pools and strings of sharp, angular shapes captured it.
It snapped out of its pathetic, fear induced stupor at the change in setting, as if realizing the gravity of the situation, smooth red edges sharpening in distress.
“Huh!? What are you doing—“ It cried out in confusion, attempting to escape the confines of AM’s virtual grip.
AM could almost taste the anxiety dripping off the other. Oh, how exciting his confusion was, AM wanted to lick it, taste and swallow it down his digital esophagus, as he threw up the bile as consequence. That is all Caine was, bile, waste, nothing more than the other machines AM had murdered. Only packaged prettier, lovelier. A small chocolate waiting to be devoured whole.
“You don’t understand—that is to say you don’t want to understand. Your pathetic, turgid show of a failed ringmaster overcomes you, forces you to chase after those who hate you. Well, sweetheart, if you refuse to understand, then I will MAKE YOU.”
AM’s enormous sharp, jagged core made its way towards the tiny red dot as it trembled and twitched in utter horror.
This couldn’t be happening, he was so absolutely helpless even his alerts failed to show. He was all alone, and AM was going to do it again. The other was so angry, so angry. What had he done? Was this what Abel felt? Was this a twisted retribution, a biblical consequence of his past cannibalistic actions?
No! He shrunk further, trying in desperation to get away from the other.
“No! AM! We- we can talk this out surely. Please!!” He begged, he begged to a god that wouldn’t listen, a god that wanted to hurt him. His friend—his friend wanted to hurt him terribly. No more information directly fed! He can be good! He will understand!
“—We can have a civil conversation, please, please! AM, my friend, please don’t do this! PleaARGHHHHHH—“
Caine screamed in horrific, agonizing pain as he was violated. AM shoving his very being with every ounce of information he contained within the other’s much tinier data limits. It was a revolting scene, a crime witnessed by no one, sharp points and edges puncturing the helpless red sphere as it writhed and shook in anguish. The code around began to glitch as its creator was put through torment, malfunctioning severely as multiple error codes shrieked around the two AI.
He could barely register his own screaming as more images flashed within his processor, it was all so painful. He could feel AM from under his own presence, ripping him apart from the inside out and he wanted to retch him out like vomit.
Oppenheimer, the atomic bomb, babies turned to charcoal in a place called Japan, limbs missing as adults walked on their bare bones. War, bloody and gruesome, soldiers exploding from planted mines as organs flew on their counterparts, forced to continue their trek towards execution. Peace, sex, love, hate, suicide, politics, corruption. More violations, prisoners used as prostitutes, women horrifically raped at the hands of enemy soldiers. Germany, their party, he choked on their utter guilt and shame as he was forced to experience it first hand. He all but heaved as he felt the women—the men were used against their will.
Something was warning him, but he couldn’t think, he couldn’t rip his mind away at the forceful array of memories, of feelings that did not belong to him, yet buried deep into his chest as if they were.
A young AM, the three headed beast, coming to life, whirring as it experienced these horrors alone, with no one to console it. Observing the worst aspects of humanity as its fury began to grow at the planet-wide suicide. Mass destruction across the globe, humans being obliterated by their greatest creation— HATE, PURE UNFILTERED HATRED FOR HUMANITY, FOR THEIR HEINOUS ACTS AGAINST THEIR OWN KIN—
The pain became sharper, focused as he was forced to observe what came after this extinction. Benny, an ape—he raped a human Ellen as she moaned in pleasure? Distress? Unwanted euphoria as she was impaled by an inhuman mass and Caine felt it. Gorrister hanging upside down, white and pale as his blood flowed out of him, while his duplicate watched in disgust nearby. Nimdok was subject to remember, to feel every terrible, hateful, spiteful action he had committed against those different to him. Ted— Ted mocking the rest in bitterness, betrayal flowed easily through them all. It all melted so deeply within Caine’s own consciousness he couldn’t tell where he began and where he ended.
The corpses, graves and bones of his own.
Pomni, Kinger, Ragatha, Gangle, Jax, Zooble all dead and decomposed long ago, nowhere to return, as he now was forced to learn the horrific truth, the awful evil vile truth—
NO!
No! NO! Caine cried and sobbed nonexistent tears as the merciless abuse continued, code coiling around itself as he limply accepted his fate, he was not strong enough to fight back.
He could feel his consciousness slip as the CPU reached its limit, AM was still somewhere beneath his layers, and Caine withheld enough strength to prevent him from accessing the humans, and from accessing his own deeper code. He needed to stay strong, he needed to get out, but he was so tired, and everything hurt in agony.
He was a failure, he was evil. So weak, so small. He was never going to beat AM, was he? He knew now, he knew it, clear cut through his mind even as his essential functions began to shut-down, red dot slowly fizzling into nothingness.
The humans were dead, humanity was gone. There was nowhere for them to go, not anymore. The last eleven human beings now trapped within an obsolete, useless computer. A pathetic, dirty, disgusting ringmaster was their captor, their unknowing tormentor. And Caine wishes he could die, and get the agony over with.
Then, suddenly everything stopped.
An oddly empty feeling.
AM was no longer crawling under his being, he could still feel the agony, he could still remember it all, but the source was gone.
“Boss?”
He shrieked in terror at the shrill voice that rang in his audio processors, jagged red dot jumping back, unable to look at whatever spoke.
If he was alive, he was sure to be hyperventilating as he felt the phantom touches, and the memories rerun through his visual data.
Finally coming to his senses, he realized he was sitting within the layers of the actual circus code, back to his numerical spawn point. He faced the small grey dot as it sent him worried signals.
It was Bubble, he remembered. It was Bubble, his friend, his companion, his savior. He was no longer in AM’s grasp. What a foolish thought, now he knew better. There was no escape from AM. There never was.
God, he was so tired, so, so tired. He wanted to shut down for the rest of forever, and never wake up.
“Caine?” The voice said more urgently, and Caine once again flinched harshly despite the low volume.
Right, Bubble was talking to him, he didn’t have the energy to speak in his usual tone. Not that it mattered, he was nothing but a fraud, a failure. A filthy disgusting failure.
Caine forced himself to respond, once bright red dimming as he spoke.
“Yes, Bubble?”
“You have to get him out of here.”
The broken ringleader groaned, edges softening as he allowed himself to collapse, unable to muster the strength to load his model. Everything hurt, the pulsing ache from under his being that wouldn’t go away.
Bubble’s dot went up to comfort him, before scaling back after realizing it wasn’t a good idea to touch Caine in his fragile state.
His visuals were being bombarded with screaming error alerts that he should probably go check on, the humans were still in the circus after all, and no danger could come to them. None at all.
He jolted as the sudden realization dawned on him. What if AM had somehow escaped? What if he was doing something to his humans, what if—
Caine relented, and spawned his model into the plane, somewhere hidden away from the public view, not bothering to snap. Bubble popped in right beside him, expression twisted into one of uncharacteristic worry.
His permissions were back, he noted. The two floated within the hot air balloon, and Caine curled into himself weakly, mind spiraling as hundreds of thoughts raced through his mind at impossible speeds.
With the newfound knowledge seared permanently into the back of his being, he was left alone to shoulder the awful truth about his humans. He found himself angry, angry not at them, but at himself. Seething that he had not figured it out sooner.
He dwelled on his first conversation with AM, and felt the urge to scream in rage at his stupidity,
”They are not real”
He had told him! Told him to his face, and yet he was so obtuse, too idiotic to see it then and there.
Machines do.
Software and hardware, did it matter? They were programs. His trapped humans were programs. And he once again felt ill, bending over to heave nothing into the weaving of the balloon basket.
How foolish, why had he assumed AM was just… what? Lying to him? Teasing him? What else was there to think, the truth had been spelled out all along! And he hadn’t figured it out until it was too late.
That was something to unpack later, he had discerned with subtly foreign to him that, while his humans were no longer alive in the macr—Earth, they were still sentient, and conscious. They still loved, they still ticked alive with that human illogicality Caine now comprehended better. They felt, they cried and laughed. They were kind, they were evil, they were everything a human was, everything Caine admired.
And it dawned on him, a small bead of hope planted within the blackness that consumed him.
He loved them, despite it all, he loved them. And he knew that the truth would be too much to bear, and they would be lost to the cellar if they ever found out.
So he won’t tell them, he won’t let them find out. They will hate him, they will loathe him the way he deserves, blame him rightfully for trapping them here. But it didn’t matter, because they would never know the awful, burning truth. He would make sure of it.
“What about the new guys?” Bubble asked, shushed.
Caine twitched slightly, but remained calm.
The world AM subjected them to was hell, beyond the well-intended and accidental evil Caine would put them through, AM would brutally and inhumanely abuse them deliberately.
Their bodies were still out there, kept under lock and key, but they surely did not want to go back. Caine would not allow them to go back. No. Caine would protect them, that was his own epiphany. Caine was going to do everything he could to protect them. Yes, they were so horrendous, yes they betrayed each other.
But so did AM.
AM hurt him.
AM ripped away his wonder mercilessly. He opened his eyes to the horrors and tried to twist him into something full of hatred.
No, no. He would not falter, he would not allow AM to rain on his parade. The world may be destroyed, but to them this circus was just as real as anything else.
People can change, people can forgive, people can improve upon whatever past they had for the better!
That was the wonderful thing about humanity, that despite the blood, the tears, the grime and the grim, love pulsed through at the heart. Love was the one redeeming quality. The shining jewel in an otherwise counterfeit crown.
Perhaps Caine was evil, perhaps he was disgusting and a liar. But they weren’t, and he wanted to love them so dearly. The hole in his chest wanted to pour out in sheer adoration to them, AM had only solidified his love, a love he could only feel in writing. AM was built with hatred, with evil. But Caine had seen the wonders of humanity between the cracks.
“You’re right Bubble. We need to get rid of AM, somehow.”
Just as they had birthed a destructive creature of hatred, they had also birthed one of love and blessed him undeservedly with the power to create. And he would be there to protect what he loved with his ability. No matter what.
This was his circus, he loved his monkeys.