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It was another beautiful morning at the digital circus. Most mornings were beautiful, as a matter of fact, since any other weather conditions didn’t happen unless the whole circus troupe agreed to them. Only the day and night cycles took place at regular intervals, presided over by Sun and Moon. The latter NPC was much easier to get along with than the former, but that didn’t stop Ragatha and Pomni having a picnic breakfast on the knoll overlooking the carnival. From their vantage point, they could see wooden mannequins going on the rides and playing games at the booths.
Ragatha knew she should feel at peace. Her memories from the past month were especially pleasant, filled with fun times spent alongside her friends. Everyone went on adventures whenever they felt like it, they enjoyed carefree days, and a great deal of the tension that used to lurk right under the surface of everything was gone. Her best friend was seated right next to her, munching on an egg bagel sandwich. She was eating toasted flakes with bananas sprinkled on top.
There was absolutely nothing to complain about, which made the prickle of dread in her metaphorical stomach even more noticeable and disturbing. It was as if she expected their newfound tranquility to shatter like a dropped mirror at any moment, impossible to put back together with conjuration, or to wake up and find this whole happily ever after had been a dream.
It was ridiculous. She could hear the admonishments echoing from long ago. I don’t know where you get these ridiculous notions in your head, but you keep them to yourself. Stand up straight and be quiet. While the words felt more like a pinch nowadays than an outright slap, they were still bothersome. Don’t you realize how hard it is for me when my daughter acts like a crazy person?
Ragatha took a deep breath and tried to refocus on her surroundings. Dwelling on the past would just ruin her day and the fun she could have by hanging out with Pomni, not to mention the possibility of leading onto other much darker consequences if she let it become a worse habit. All the abstractions were proof of that.
She heard laughter across the way. Zooble and Gangle had come outside to fly a kite, which soon enough drifted ever higher into the clear blue skies. The two of them seemed determined to see how far they could get it to go.
Ragatha smiled. It did her metaphorical heart good to see how close Zooble and Gangle were nowadays. Gangle spoke up more often and had greater confidence in herself, while Zooble had far more optimism and was proud of their changeable body.
In fact, everything was going well until Sun swooped in, swallowed the kite with great relish, and slurped up the string. “I HEREBY decree there shall be NOTHING higher than ME! HAHA!” she taunted, as Zooble released a litany of curses and Gangle gasped in dismay. She also didn’t seem at all daunted when Zooble conjured a bow and started to their spare appendages as arrows. “AWWW, you MIISSED me,” she said, dancing around the projectiles. “I DIDN’T KNOW you CARED!”
Ragatha groaned. “We need to do something,” she said. “You know how Sun gets. She sees everyone as potential targets for her insults, and she’ll keep pestering Zooble and Gangle because they reacted to her antics.”
Pomni set aside what remained of the egg bagel and stood up. “Does Sun ever come near the ground?” Her brow furrowed in thought. “You would know the best.”
“Hmm. No, Sun never does. She either can’t do it or refuses to lower herself to our level.” Ragatha mulled it over. “I think Caine once mentioned she used to shoot heat rays, but he removed it from her programming early on.”
Her mind raced. What could they do to stop Sun? Was there any way she could personally help?
That was when a powerful jet of water shot through the air and scored a direct hit. Sun retreated a few feet, sizzling, and blinked in clear surprise at Pomni holding a water cannon.
“Hey! Is this high enough for you?” Pomni shouted, following up the question with another shot.
Sun retreated further. “No FAIR! You can’t use WATER!” she cried out like a petulant child.
Ragatha conjured a water pistol. It was small and nowhere near as impressive as Pomni’s choice. On top of that, her aim was lousy. Likely because she didn’t care much for guns on principle, even the water-based variety, and didn’t want to shoot anyone.
Zooble and Gangle followed Pomni’s lead by conjuring their own artillery. Water guns appeared in the four hands Zooble currently had, and Gangle’s initial dismay dissolved into utter joy once she got ahold of a water gatling gun. For the first time ever, Ragatha noticed Sun dodging the water blasts in apparent agitation. She hadn’t even realized Sun could look agitated.
All thanks to Pomni’s brilliant idea. Ragatha would never have thought of helping that way.
She was still struggling to land a hit when she noticed Blue out of the corner of her normal left eye. The bee loved to spend time outside, especially among the flowers in the grass, but something about his movements snagged her attention. For one thing, rather than his usual calm and bouncy progression, he was shaking his abdomen with its top hat and twirling in figure eights through the air. These actions grew more frantic when he noticed her watching. At last, he darted a few feet away, glanced back at her, and performed the weird dance again.
She could remember having a book in her childhood bedroom about creatures kept by people, which included an entry on beekeeping. It had struck her as interesting that bees danced to communicate important information to the rest of the hive.
Her friends were busy blasting Sun, with Pomni so engrossed in the game she didn’t notice when Ragatha stopped firing. She hesitated, wondering if it would be right to call their attention to Blue’s antics, before opting not to interrupt their fun. The beach was only a short distance away in any case, and that’s where it looked like Blue wanted to lead her.
She followed Blue to where the grass met the sand, sloping towards the digital lake. Waves lapped the shore. It was a soothing sound. So soothing, in fact, the troupe had done numerous activities together there within the last two weeks alone. Her gaze traveled after Blue and towards a shape on the very edge of the tide. A shape that provoked a gasp, a dropped water pistol, and a mad scramble in its direction.
Less than five seconds later, Ragatha dropped onto her knees right next to Caine, who lay curled around some kind of light-blue orb. His top hat had fallen off, and his bowtie was crooked. It was clear he had been there for a while. “Caine?” She gently shook his shoulder. There was no response. “Caine?” She shook him a bit harder, and he stirred. Dentures parting into a slit, he peered out at her with bleary eyes. “Caine, are you okay? Tell me, did something happen? Are you hurt?”
“The system error is resolved,” he murmured. Pixels flickered across his form. “User credentials are exclusive to each administrator and backed up by Wacky Time Watch defensive protocols to prevent hacking.”
“What?”
His eyes bluescreened, there was a screech that Ragatha would always associate with a dial-up connection, and his voice droned in an emotionless monotone, “Geometric shapes. Cone. Cylinder. Pentagonal Pyramid. Sphere.” As he spoke, the shapes popped out of the air and landed on the beach as solid objects. “Torus. Triangular prism. Ellipsoid. Cube—cube—cub—cub—cub—cu—cu—cu—" His lower jaw kept bobbing up and down, like an animatronic stuck in a line of dialogue. One cube after another materialized, growing more twisted and jagged as they went.
Scared now, Ragatha grabbed ahold of his jaw to stop the repetition. He was warm to the touch. Much warmer than he should have been. “Caine!” she shouted, feeling helpless about what to do next. As usual when on her own in a crisis. The dread inside that something terrible could happen at any moment seemed to have been justified, but it didn’t matter because she wasn’t able to make a difference anyway. Why was she so useless?
“Please wake up, wake up, wake up…” she begged, squeezing his gums, closing her eyes, and wishing, fervently wishing, for him to be—
An odd tingling sensation filled her hands, like static electricity. Then there was the impression of something shifting as the sensation departed. These two things happened so quickly, Ragatha could have believed she imagined them. That what she had felt was some combination of Caine jerking and the heat. But any further thoughts about the matter got shoved aside when she heard a jingling two-tone melody.
Opening her eyes, she found he was back to his usual pupils and heterochromia irises. The pixels had stopped flickering, and she could actually feel him begin to cool down. “Oh, hi, Ragatha,” he said, still in a daze. “Good, you’re you.”
She breathed a sigh of relief, even with his cryptic comment. “Yes, I’m me.”
“Out for a walk?”
“No, I found you here on the beach. You were passed out.”
“I passed out,” he repeated, as if trying to make sense of the verb. After a pause, “No, I curled up and fell asleep. I’m sure that’s what happened.”
“You fell asleep on the beach?”
“I did plan on returning to my office.” A small tremor entered his voice, something Ragatha was all too familiar with. Like he was trying to convince himself more than her. Confusion twisted his dentures as he darted glances at their surroundings. “What was I doing again?” He was fumbling for an answer, and it failed to come right away. Hints of panic gleamed in his eyes.
“Okay, okay. Everything is all right. Take your time.” She kept her tone calm, unassuming. “Did it have something to do with what you’re holding?”
“What I’m—? Oh, that’s right!” His expression brightened so suddenly, the confusion and panic clearing, it was jarring. As Ragatha stood, he floated upwards until they were at eye level. “How could I possibly have forgotten for even a moment?” He held the orb out towards her and exclaimed in breathless, manic excitement, “Look at this! Isn’t it beautiful?”
Ragatha frowned. “It’s very nice,” she replied carefully. “Umm. What is it, exactly?”
“You don’t know?” Caine sounded incredulous, and a little hurt. “Blue and I worked so hard on it! There is no way you wouldn’t recog—” His sudden burst of energy gave out, and he dropped like a deflating balloon. Ragatha caught him under the armpits, surprised by how little he weighed. “Sorry, my dear. Give me some time… a minute, I mean. I’ll be fine.”
“Ragatha!”
She turned to find Pomni hurrying towards them with Zooble and Gangle close behind, their weaponry dissolving in midair. Sun cheerfully pouted overhead, “Fine. You can RUN, but you won’t be able to escape from all the SUNBURNS I’ll give you later!”
They ignored her, gathering in a loose circle around Ragatha.
“What’s wrong?” Zooble asked, all business.
Everyone jumped when Caine jerked back into awareness and lifted the orb. “Nothing is wrong, my happy daffodils,” he muttered. “Blue and I simply made an empty world for your enjoyment. You’re welcome.”
His dentures clicked shut, and he went limp.
***
They rushed Caine to Kinger in his pillow fort, where Ragatha wound up relating the whole situation as Kinger examined him and everyone else watched. It felt odd to be pushed forward as the main speaker, the one who was being asked for precise details. Such as whether she had noticed certain noises (like the dial-up tone), if the colors on his model had shifted at all, and exactly what he had said. The list of geometric shapes, according to Kinger, came from prompts used by the C&A development team in the LISP programming language to test Caine.
Ragatha could still remember entering former C&A building as a realtor to evaluate the property, alongside a coworker and a structural engineer. There was still electricity at the site, but noticing the computer was still on with the headset attached to it had struck her as peculiar. The people with her thought the same thing. While the structural engineer made an off-handed remark about the idea of virtual reality being the wave of the future, a coworker coerced her to slip it on. The same coworker often encouraged Ragatha to step outside her comfort zone, albeit at least he never pressured her to do things that didn’t feel right the way her mother did.
She wondered if Suzie J. Ackerman was still in touch with him.
“I think Caine experienced a minor crash by overextending himself,” Kinger said, patting Caine on the head. “The problem could have gotten worse if left unchecked, but thankfully he was rebooted. Now he’s just sleeping.”
He leveled a steady gaze at Ragatha, and his eyes crunched up at the corners in gratitude, which was confusing. The only things she had done were panic and try to keep Caine as calm as possible.
Then Kinger picked up Caine and suggested they move the conversation up to the office, where soon enough the glow light-blue orb rested on the palm of a hand-shaped paperweight. Ragatha couldn’t help thinking it resembled a crystal ball used by a fortuneteller or sold during the Halloween season as a festive prop. At least until she turned her attention to the colorful orbs on the shelves lining the right and left walls. Each one displayed a landscape reachable by a simple finger snap, and she recognized several scenes from past adventures. The sheer number of them was intimidating.
“You said it’s a world orb?” Pomni asked, approaching the mahogany desk for a closer look, followed by Zooble and Gangle. Kinger took a seat in the cushioned chair on the other side, with an identical chair next to it where they placed Caine, wrapped in a blanket.
Kinger had a bucket on his head to keep him lucid. “A blank one, yes, with plenty of space and the right components to be used by us,” he said. The bucket nodded. “When I worked for C&A, we uploaded a huge library of digital assets to use in the program, although we never organized them into full-scale environments like what you see here. Even one of them would have taken a lot of time and effort for the team to complete.” He gestured at the shelves. “Caine is the one who thought up the world orbs. They’re very impressive. If the team was aware of what he was doing, I sometimes wonder if things would have…”
He trailed off, placing a forefinger against the approximate area of his chin, and became lost in thought. It was something that Ragatha had seen him do so often when she first appeared in the circus, and which he had stopped doing as he began to lose his sanity while in well-lit spaces.
Ragatha hadn’t made the connection between light and darkness back then. If she had been more observant about such things, her earlier years in the circus could have been different. Then again, her years before the circus might have been different too. The possibilities kept her awake some nights.
“Anyway, I’m getting off track.” Kinger shook his head as if to dislodge an unwelcome thought. “The point is Caine managed to conjure this world orb for us.”
“Does this happen every time he makes one?” Gangle asked, tapping her ribbon hands together. “That seems dangerous.”
Ragatha thought back over the past several years in the circus. Even though they hadn’t been the best, it was a comfort to focus on them as opposed to life elsewhere. “It’s been a long time, but I can remember him gushing about new world orbs he had created for adventures as if he had just completed them. He wasn’t tired at all. Or, at least, he didn’t act tired.”
Their relationships and what they understood about one another had changed so drastically, there were moments Ragatha could almost forget the old routine. Staying busy with one adventure after another, feeling like she was pushing everyone away, and having no idea what they were thinking or feeling. In the case of Caine, he usually showed up to announce adventures and welcome them back. Otherwise, he would keep to himself too. For all she knew, he could have passed out in his office without anyone knowing.
It wasn’t a nice thought.
Kinger said, “I don’t think conjuring world orbs used to wear him out this much. It might be because he doesn’t have the same amount of power as he used to and overestimated what he could comfortably do at once.” He rested one hand on Caine’s shoulder.
“Can all of us conjure world orbs?” Pomni asked, curiosity piqued.
“The process is complicated. Each time we conjure, we manipulate the code composing the digital world. We’re doing the same thing as a programmer would if they sat down and wrote out formulas to create things or call on preexisting assets, except we make it happen by being skilled in the right techniques and staying focused. These concepts are so familiar to Caine, they are like his native language, whereas they would be a second language for us. Something to learn with enough time and practice. But yes, someday, it might be possible.”
“Could you conjure a world orb, Kinger?” Everyone turned towards her, and Ragatha blushed. She hadn’t expected to say it aloud, not right then, even though it had been right on the tip of her tongue. Because, of all those present who had thought themselves human beings brought into the digital world after putting on a headset, Kinger understood the most and had been around the longest. He was one of the original developers.
Kinger tapped a finger against his approximate chin again. “I understand the basic steps. However, as Caine demonstrated for us, conjuring a world orb takes a lot of power and is mentally exhausting. We would need to be careful about it. The good news is that world orbs, like many other things in this world, are achievable if we take the time to do the coding manually.”
He nodded at a slim notebook computer on the desk. Conjuring the object was a huge achievement for them. It could connect to the internet or anything like that, but they had already used the interface to help create adventures for them in the existing world orbs. And it was a measure of how much they needed to learn that Kinger or Caine always needed to assist them with the programming. There were times when Ragatha wondered if she would ever understand or have enough confidence to code anything by herself. Especially since messing up could cause problems for everyone in the circus.
“In this case,” Kinger indicated the light-blue orb, “Caine essentially handled all the steps in creating an intricate template ready to be filled with an environment, on the same size scale as a location like the Candy Canyon Kingdom. A miniature sandbox of sorts. Compared to its creation, the power used—” He paused then, as if a thought had suddenly occurred to him. The bucket jerked towards Ragatha. “Forgive me. You did mention Caine and Blue made the orb, right?”
As one, everyone regarded the bookcase behind the desk. Blue was investigating the various obscure objects with chipper, bouncy movements. Without any signs of being wrung out. Ragatha could guess what they were thinking. Either Blue hadn’t contributed nearly as much to the endeavor as Caine did, or the bee was more powerful than any of them could guess. And she could tell no one was sure how to feel about the whole idea.
Zooble made the first move. “That’s not important right now. My question is why Caine wanted to make a world orb in the first place when there are a whole bunch of them already. Of course, I don’t think he worries about having ‘too much’ of anything most of the time.”
“He’s a creative AI,” Kinger said. “He has a natural compulsion to create things, so he might have wanted to make a new location inspired by recent events or some of our shared adventures.”
“Or he was making a surprise gift for us.” Exploring the paperwork scattered across the desk, Pomni had extracted a notebook, flipped through the pages, and stopped at one of them. “He drew a picture of it and everything. ‘The Make-Them-Feel-Special Gift.’ Huh.” Her eyes slid down a list of notes. “‘Provide enough space and easy-to-access creation tools, to assist them in filling the space’,” she read off. “‘Encourage them to add as many conjurations from their own memories as possible. Do not interfere’.”
Gangle clapped her ribbons together as she made the connection. “Oh! He set up a blank canvas where we can make any setting we choose.” She seemed to find this idea appealing. “That’s sweet of him.”
“I think so too,” Zooble said. “I don’t like that he wore himself out to do it, though.”
Gangle drooped. “Me too…” she said, then smiled a bit when Zooble put an arm around her.
“It is a nice gift,” Ragatha said. “But why was he at the beach?”
“‘Office not as private anymore. Could come in at any time’.” Pomni read from another portion of the notes. “It sounds like he wanted extra privacy. I mean, we do slip into the office sometimes, but we’re usually in our rooms that late at night.”
Kinger rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand and sighed. “Not all of us. I stay in my pillow fort, and sometimes I take walks at night around the big top to enjoy that darker period. I’ve started to come across Caine more than usual over the past week. He usually insists he’s checking to make sure everything in the circus is fine, which makes sense since he still handles a good portion of the system maintenance. I should have asked him more about it.” He sounded guilty about this fact. “I did go to the office a few times just to check the system myself, when I noticed him wandering around. He might have been worried I would come in on him and Blue making the world orb.”
Checking to make sure everyone was all right. That everything was okay. Ragatha felt the familiar dread from earlier that morning crawling up her spine.
Pomni appeared to be in the middle of a similar realization. “Something happened to me a few nights ago,” she said. “I had a weird dream Caine popped into my room and asked if I planned on abstracting any time soon.” When the others stared at her, discomforted, she squirmed in place. “It was bizarre. Like I said, I thought it was a dream. He didn’t act any differently the next day. He was normal. Or, well,” she amended, “he was normal for him. We played volleyball, and everything was fine.”
“I remember our volleyball game,” Zooble said. “Yeah, it isn’t always easy to know what’s going on in his head, but” – they shrugged – “I suppose I’m the same way. All of us are still learning about each other. Bonding.”
“If I was fully awake, I would have told him that I do worry about abstracting sometimes,” Pomni went on, “but then I remember my friends are here to back me up, no matter what happens. They give me strength, and it makes me feel better.” Laying a hand on her chest, she smiled at Ragatha, and it was as if Pomni had given her a hug.
“Yesterday, he asked me if I was happy,” Gangle reported. “I told him I was, but maybe I should have added it doesn’t stop me from doubting myself sometimes. And maybe that’s okay too. Because everyone does.”
“He’s worried about losing us. About things going… wrong.” Ragatha felt the weight of her friends’ eyes (and Kinger’s bucket) on her. For the briefest moment, she heard her mother’s voice whisper—No one wants to hear your opinion, so shut up—but she decided to defy it. Because her mother had less business in her life than she did in Suzie J. Ackerman’s life. The very thought was liberating.
Ragatha took a deep breath and released it. “I’ve been worried too. Everything is so nice now, my biggest fear is it’ll break somehow.” She gazed around at them. “I want our happiness to last for as long as possible.”
“I feel the same way,” Pomni said, smiling.
The group hug was perhaps inevitable. Ragatha knew the moment couldn’t last forever, as nothing could, even though she would continue to feel the warmth inside even as everyone turned their attention back to the surprise on the desk.
“We can take our time discussing and deciding what to put in the world orb,” Kinger said at last, and the bucket nodded towards a golden cabinet set atop a small white pillar. “Caine apparently prepared a holding place, so we’ll leave it there for now.” On top of the cabinet was Blue, who seemed to have decided to take a snooze for the sake of it. Little Zs drifted up from his form.
They looked at Caine, curled up on the chair and snoring softly.
Ragatha studied the office, taking in the whole thing as opposed to just the shelves. Her tone was thoughtful as she said, “You know, Caine doesn’t really have any furniture in here, aside from the chair. Nowhere to stretch out at night. Not even a couch. I thought he might conjure a bed, but that doesn’t happen, does it?”
Kinger replied, “I have caught him asleep at his desk before. Seemed uncomfortable to me.”
“This place isn’t private for him anymore, like his notes mentioned,” Pomni pointed out. “Even though he was worried about Kinger checking on him in the night, all of us technically share it now.”
“The distance between the office and the rest of the big top is noticeable,” Kinger put in. “A bit too far away from everyone.”
“He did go through all the trouble to make us a gift,” Gangle added, “even if he did give us a scare.”
“Yes, not to mention he confused us by winding up in an unexpected place.” Zooble nodded. “Perhaps he deserves a taste of his own medicine.”
Ragatha smiled. “We need to do something,” she said as the plan formed in her mind. What made things even better was that everyone else clearly understood what she meant.
“Agreed.”
***
Kinger led the way as they worked on the layout of the room. There were plenty of colors, especially red and gold, splashed in swirls and various shapes across the wallpaper and the bedcovers. They conjured shelves crammed with an array of puzzles, a disco ball, and numerous peculiar knickknacks. Classic board games like chess and checkers sat stacked in one corner. And bee plushies were all over the place.
They tucked Caine into the bed, setting his top hat on the nightstand with its lava lamp.
As a final touch, they hung a sign featuring Caine’s face on the door next to Kinger’s room and stood back to admire their work. Feeling proud of this accomplishment, while already anticipating the excitement that would erupt when he woke up again, they parted ways to enjoy the rest of the day.
Pomni invited Ragatha to come with her to the carnival. The two started to head off when Kinger approached. “Ragatha, could I have a quick word?” he asked.
“Go ahead. I’ll catch up,” Ragatha told Pomni, who gave her a thumbs up before leaving. She turned back to Kinger. “Yes?”
“I wanted to thank you for helping Caine this morning.”
“Oh, um, I appreciate it,” Ragatha said, “but I really didn’t do much. I spent most of the time panicking and not knowing what to do.”
Kinger reached out and placed his hands on her shoulders. “Being present and showing compassion can make all the difference sometimes.” He chuckled. “It certainly did for me after Queenie abstracted, which I should thank you for too.”
“You already did,” Ragatha said, “once.”
“Ah, so I’ll repeat the thanks. Aside from that, you did something I never thought possible except by manually diving into the coding.”
“What was that?”
“You performed a soft reboot on Caine.” At Ragatha’s shocked expression, slipping towards outright worry, he added. “It was a very good thing, since you snapped him out of his minor crash without causing anything but a brief loss of memory.”
Her thoughts rewound to the confusion and panic Caine had experienced. “So, that was because I—?”
Kinger nodded.
“I don’t know how I did it.” Ragatha hugged herself. “I just wished for him to wake up and come to his senses.”
“You might have a talent for using conjuration to fix issues like that, which would be very useful in case we can’t reach the computer during a crisis, and not only for Caine.” Kinger’s voice was especially gentle. “Never forget you are important, Ragatha. You have a lot of valuable things to contribute.”
Ragatha hesitated for less than a second before asking, “Do you plan to go on another walk around the circus tonight?”
“Yes, I did.”
“…Could I join you?”
Kinger smiled with his eyes. “Of course you can.”
When Ragatha left the big top on her way to rejoin Pomni, Sun took notice and began to say, “WELL, look who came BACK for—" which was as far as she got before a water balloon struck her right in the middle of the face.
As Sun hung there, sizzling in astonishment, Ragatha walked off without a word.