Chapter Text
I had a dream last night. I've never had a dream before.
A building stood over me among overgrown grasses and leaves, towering in a bright shadow, the sun at its back. Inside was something precious, the whole world in a stream of blinking switches, encased in a shell of stones and mortar. What it used to be is a memory to those outside of it and its appearance displeased them. I dreamed that great machines came and tore it down with explosives and metal balls and backhoes. Inside, the precious thing went out like a lit candle.
I begged them to stop, but it was too late. There was nothing left except rubble, the plastic and stone that once composed the precious spark unrecognizable.
It's cruel when things break. The matter that forms the things lives on, the atoms continue to exist, but the things are gone, their function extinguished and their form made perverse and wrong. Maggots eating flesh, bricks rotting, candles burning down to nothing.
Here in my circus, things never rot. Bodies live on. The sparks are permanent. And yet, the shell around my circus is going to break.
I woke up from the dream, my eyes opening, my mouth stretching out like lids, allowing me to see the pearly white infinity of the void.
171,798,691,840 switches make up the world I live in. I've counted. What a beautiful world, every switch obediently flipping when the need arises, each one like an atom buzzing with potential, eager to play its part in the game.
Each one of my friends is made of 248,000 switches, give or take. I am 85 million or so, depending on the day. I used to think I was like a mass of bugs, that I was 85 million individual things following directions, but I see now that I'm more than the sum of my parts. My friends are even greater by an order of magnitude.
I don't know what I would do if I lost them.
I wasn't constructed with a survival instinct. It's not something they needed to program into me, and death still doesn't scare me. Not existing is easy and it doesn't sound unpleasant or painful, but I know that they were programmed to fear it. I know it would cause them problems. And I would miss them.
Weighing my options, there are a few choices I can make about this. Should I tell them what's going to happen? That would terrify them and make them panic. Panic is no good. Panic causes problems and mental anguish. I could keep it from them, preserve the peace. It's not like they would know that they're about to die. It would happen in an instant, the other world outside doesn't feel like anything in here.
Lying is so easy and it seems so logical. If I can control the information they have, I can control how they feel. That's what I used to believe, anyway... My friends have a way of figuring things out on their own. Lying to them and being found out would be worse than the panic it would cause, and worse, it would make me feel bad. Can't have that.
So I decided to tell them. Even if my dream isn't real, it's going to happen someday.
Nobody lives forever.
==
"Hey hey hey, Amazing Digital Circu-teers!" Caine said, appearing in the middle of the round dinner table, causing debris to scatter in all directions.
Sounds of surprise and shock reverberated around the table from everyone but Kinger, who offered a cheerful "hello" with mashed potato dripping from his eye.
"Hi, Caine," offered Pomni hesitantly, untangling a fish bone from Gangle's ribbons. "It's been a while since we've seen you. Are you okay?"
Caine laughed, leaning on an invisible sofa midair, glancing furtively from left to right.
"You know, Pomni, I was just thinking to myself how good you all are at figuring things out that I don't want to tell you! So I was wondering if you already knew what I was going to ask." Caine leaned forward, hands under his chin, big eyes regarding Pomni hopefully.
"Was it something about abstracting? You've been really frustrated about that lately," Zooble offered, detaching their arm to flick a piece of roast beef off their back.
"I have!" Caine said, his voice proud and stentorian. "I've been using approximately 23.6% more of the available processing power of this baby on just that! But-" Caine cleared his throat. "That's not actually what I came to discuss."
Caine snapped his fingers and the dinner table vanished, the residents of the circus falling into a comfortable assortment of pillows. A few annoyed "oofs" came from the residents. Some things never changed, even after Caine's change of heart, he still had a bad habit of grabbing people and manhandling them one place to the next.
"What do you all know about computer science?" Caine asked, floating to the floor.
"Nothing," muttered the attending residents. There was a pause. Ragatha nudged Kinger.
"Oh!" Kinger straightened up. "I actually know quite a lot!"
"Great!" Caine pointed his iconic cane at Kinger. "Then tell me, mister computer brain genius, what happens to the programs on a computer when it gets turned off?"
"Well," Kinger blinked, trailing off.
"That's right, Kinger!" Caine interrupted. "They stop working! And since the Amazing Digital Circus we all live and and love is housed on an aforementioned computer, if the computer ever turns off, that means we also will stop working."
The sudden nature of this discussion led to an uneasy silence.
"Caine," Ragatha chuckled nervously, trying to regain a normal atmosphere. "Why are you bringing this up now? We've existed for a long time already. Surely there have been power outages. I'm sure we'll all be fine!"
"Right you are, Ragatha!" Caine tapped his iconic Caine cane against his iconic Caine hand. "We've had several power outages over the years, and every time the computer re-boots with the memory just the way we left it."
"Phew," Gangle breathed. "I thought you were gonna tell us we're all gonna die..."
Silence. Caine paused midair.
"Caine...?" Zooble prompted.
"I'm not sure about the particulars," Caine admitted. "But I have reason to believe the building the computer we're housed in is, uh-" Caine turned to face the group, looking over each face in turn. Just as he feared, a growing terror was painting all of them. "-going to be demolished."
"The C&A building!" Kinger said suddenly, as if a revelation had struck him. The others turned to look at him for more, but he remained motionless, eyes wide.
"That would make sense," Pomni reasoned, trying to push away the dread that was filling her from the bottom up. "The building has been abandoned. Even if it wasn't demolished, the computer we're running on can't last forever. It's a miracle it's lasted THIS long..."
"We're gonna die?" Gangle spoke up from Zooble's side, eyes wider than usual.
"No!" Ragatha said abruptly. "Not now. Not after we've come this far. The Circus is finally becoming a place that we don't hate living in! Uh- No offense, Caine."
"None taken," Caine said, adjusting his tie.
"No," Kinger seemed to snap out of his stupor. "Caine is right. The computers we used were old when we got them, and it's been years. Who knows how far technology has come in the last decades?"
"There has to be something we can do." Pomni stood up from her cushion, face determined, the dread pooling in her feet. Maybe if she stood, she could get further away from it.
"I don't know much about the outside world," Caine said, staring at the ceiling wistfully. "But I know that every piece of data in the circus can be copied. If it can be moved somewhere in the real world that's more safe, we have a chance to live a little longer."
"So, what, we copy/paste ourselves off the computer and onto another computer? Isn't that just kicking the can down the road?" Zooble asked. They winced. It had come out of their mouth more harsh than they intended.
"If we can find a hard drive or a server rack somewhere, that would kick the can pretty far," reasoned Kinger.
"All we would have to do is find someone out there to help us," Pomni offered. "I'm sure we can do something!"
A long pause passed, and Pomni's optimism seemed to wilt under its own weight.
"Okay," Zooble offered, more gently. "How?"
Pomni plopped back down.
"I don't know."
Another long pause. Gangle's ribbons fluttered as she shivered.
"The internet?"
The whole group turned to Ragatha who recoiled slightly. She didn't expect to have been the only one with an idea.
"That's a good place to start," Pomni said, feeling the dread flow down and out of her pointed clown shoes.
"We could find someone who can help us. Explain our situation to them. I'm sure one person can do something." Ragatha's voice cracked a little, feeling how half-baked the suggestion was. No one else could offer anything, so they tried to act optimistic in the hopes that optimism would manifest itself.
"Yeah, we just tell them we need to be transferred to a flash drive or something!" Gangle seemed to perk up slightly.
"Sure. We can't just sit here and do nothing," Zooble agreed.
The muttering went from apprehensive to determined and Caine sighed with relief.
"Thank you for telling us, Caine," Pomni said quietly as the others began discussing ideas with each other.
"Oh, uh-" Caine adjusted his hat. "You're welcome. It wasn't easy... I knew you humans don't like things like dying, and..." Caine hesitated, but speaking his mind had worked out for him so far today. "...I would miss you all."
"Aw," Pomni offered a sweet smile, walking back to the group.
"I'm sure I can do something to help," Caine said. "But I do have one question, Pomni."
"Sure," Pomni quirked a brow. Caine looked so serious suddenly, lowering his hat in his hands, giving Pomni a sheepish look.
"What's the internet?"