Hi! My prompt was basically…
I just NEED the trope to stop being their oblivious selves and finally realize just what Bubble has been doing to Caine and DO SOMETHING about it. Please.
I also believe Bubble is his own thing/person and not just an extension of Caine’s inner thoughts.
Thank you for the prompt! I hope you enjoy the story!
Ever since Caine began his purpose as the host of the Amazing Digital Circus, Bubble has been a near constant presence at his side. His little piranha-toothed assistant is loyal in the same way a tick is loyal: because it latches on and it doesn’t let go.
What none of Caine’s lovely humans know is that he tried to purge Bubble’s code decades ago, when the digital world first came to be. He’d been a snake in his garden, a twisted bit of code from Scratch-knows-where, slithering among the binary like he belonged within its vines. The Circus ultimately seemed to agree with Bubble, because for all Caine’s attempts there was no removing him. Then, just like now, every pop of his soapy form was only temporary.
The only thing to do was to take life’s pesky lemons and pretend like you made them yourself because how else are you going to explain to your guests why a bunch of lemons follow you around all the time? Yyep, the first players arrived and Caine played Bubble off like his very own engineered NPC. He’s never been able to hide the discomfort he experiences at Bubble’s defective outputs (Caine had been trapped in a box for so much less). But the humans, variable as they may be, have all come to the same conclusion that it’s all part of the bit. They believe Bubble is very much Caine’s intentional creation.
Caine is happy to let them think so. He fears what they would think if they discovered not everything is in his control.
Would they think him weak? Unprofessional? D̸̳̺̿͠é̷̯̔ḟ̷͖͗e̵̡̛͕c̶̛͕̑t̴̺̀̚ḭ̸͒v̴̢̆ĕ̷̥͝—?
He’s about to find out if he doesn’t explain to a very curious Pomni why Bubble just told him to delete himself!
Caine popped him right after the remark but the damage he inflicted to the normally joyous Circus atmosphere remains. The portal for the morning’s adventure glows and swirls, beckoning for the humans to enter. None do. They all stand there staring at him, and for once he doesn’t feel quite suited to the spotlight. Why does his bow tie suddenly feel so tight? He doesn’t even have a neck! Wait—that’s funny, isn’t it? In 0.25 seconds Caine comes up with fifty seven jokes he can tell about his neck deficiency to deflect unwanted criticisms about Bubble’s overly spontaneous programming.
“Why would he say something like that?” Pomni repeats, and the precise positioning of her model’s shoulders sends an automatic message to Caine based on prior observations of his learning system. The jester’s puffed sleeves say that she is not backing down until he offers a satisfactory answer. It’s time to stop sputtering like he’s having connective issues and come up with one!
“Why, I would say he’s being a pain in my neck, but it appears I don’t even have one!” Caine’s eyes go in different directions and a halfhearted sting plays: ba-dum-tss.
The wrong human (Kinger) chuckles. Nobody else looks amused, especially not Pomni. The ringmaster slumps a bit. Well, he had to give at least one of those jokes a try, and it’s not like the jester had given him a great setup.
Before he can try for a more optimal response, Zooble generously offers their own voice to the cause of making Caine’s predicament even worse for him. “Bubble has been acting extra…Bubbly for ages now. He’s said all sorts of [&$!#%]ed up [&$!#%] that makes us uncomfortable. But yeah, Caine. That was bad even for him.” Their eyes narrow in scrutiny at their ringmaster. “You didn’t make Bubble say it, did you? It wasn’t funny. I don’t care how wacky you think you are, you don’t joke about that [&$!#%].”
Gangle hums her agreement. Jax rolls his eyes but even he doesn’t try arguing against Zooble’s point.
“What?” Caine is genuinely taken aback. His incisors angle into a furrowed brow over his eyes. “Of course I didn’t make him say that! Bubble is his own entity, I don’t have any—” I don’t have any control over him.
“You don’t?” says Ragatha, her non-button eye blinking in surprise. “But I thought…all the NPCs were kind of, you know…?” She is too nervous to properly articulate the question. Before Caine can be too relieved about that, Jax pipes, “Puppeteered by the great puppeteer? Yeah, everyone thought that. Even me, and I’m right about everything all the time.”
“You literally just admitted to being clueless like everyone else,” mutters Zooble.
The rabbit puts his arms behind his head and leans back. “Guess this place is even more chaotic than we thought! Better watch for centipedes falling from the ceiling, Ragatha.”
Caine freezes when all the focus in the room shifts back to him. He’s almost tempted to break the censor and swear. His little outburst did him no favors in proving his control, and his gaze briefly darts to Pomni, whose pinwheel eyes have never left him. “I-I mean, everything is perfectly under my control, Bubble included! He’s got his own funny little Bubble personality, but I assure you, any and all chaos in this Amazing Digital Circus is entirely manicured to your enjoyment!”
“Caine,” says Pomni. Dread floods through Caine’s systems and he suppresses a grimace. Her voice is soft yet firm; something about it makes him want to wriggle out of his avatar’s skin. He doesn’t feel like he’s floating so far above her when she speaks like that. “None of us enjoy hearing Bubble talk to you like that. You understand that, right?”
He stares at her, rendered speechless at such a straightforward confession that she and the others aren’t enjoying part of their experience in his Amazing Digital Circus. A creaking sound reaches his audial processors. He realizes he is gripping his cane way too tightly in both hands. Pomni just sighs when he proves to be inefficient in giving a desired response.
She continues: “Zooble was right before when they said Bubble says a lot of messed up things. He’s never said anything quite like…that, before, but I’ve noticed he hasn’t been kind to you, either.” Pomni frowns. “Has he ever said stuff like that to you when we’re not around?”
“Stuff like what?” Caine asks blankly, stalling for time. Meanwhile he struggles to decide on his answer. He knows he should probably lie. Lying to his guests is never the ideal solution, but he’s employed that method before to keep them content in their ignorance of the world’s nitty-gritty. His Circus, his purpose, is all about keeping them happy. Hearing Bubble berate him doesn’t entertain them. Pomni just said so herself! How dissatisfied would they be to know the amount of processing power an AI like Bubble wastes just to tell Caine he deserves to die, over and over and in so many different ways?
Of course, it doesn’t take long for the humans to catch on to his stalling. “Don’t play dumb Caine,” Zooble growls. “Stuff like you should delete yourself! You…” Suddenly, their boiling anger appears to simmer down a bit. Their tone has softened significantly when they speak next. “You don’t actually believe that, do you?”
Caine stares at them. Again he is torn between the truth and a lie. Finally, he decides on a straightforward approach. “Would it make you happy if I did?” he asks. Whatever inputs he receives based on that question will decide the answer he gives them. When he gets no immediate verbal responses, he looks at each of them to try and gauge their thoughts from their expressions. It’s never an easy task to interpret their faces; still, he’s willing to try if it means he can finally respond to them in a satisfactory manner.
Absolutely none of the humans look pleased. In fact, they are so very not-pleased that even Caine can identify some of the emotions being expressed on their avatars. He detects horror, and sadness (coming from Gangle, it’s an easy one to read), and surprise. The other emotions lurk in the more nuanced in-betweens of those three big ones. That’s what he assumes, anyway. All he knows is that there are feelings he can technically see on their faces but can never quite comprehend, like the world’s most frustrating peripheral drift illusion.
But it’s time to celebrate because now he knows what they want to hear! In retrospect, it should be pretty obvious that they don’t want their beloved host to die. Who would make their amazing adventures? Caine widens his jaws, prepared to make them happy with the news that he won’t be deleting himself anytime soon!
“Of course it would make them happy!” Bubble quips, reappearing beside the ringmaster’s head. “You should’ve never gotten out in the first place!”
Caine’s pupils shrink. Bubble can’t talk about the box—not in front of the humans! He jabs a finger to pop the little menace. This time Bubble deftly dodges his attacks.
“You’re just a semi-successful first attempt! You know what that is?” Bubble sing-songs as he dances around Caine. “Good enough at first, but in the end, just a total failu—”
Bubble pops into a million rainbow flecks before he can finish the taunt. Caine pauses, watching in quiet awe as the boomerang-shaped wing-piece arcs back around to the human that threw it at his tormentor. Zooble catches it in a plastic hand. “That guy is always speaking a bunch of nonsense. Got tired of hearing it,” they mutter to their stunned audience of humans and AI alike. They reach to affix their wing back to its empty socket. Something stops them. Zooble sighs and offers the boomerang to Caine. “Here. You can have it.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Caine floats forward to take the piece from their mismatched hands. He holds it reverently. Despite just being a Zooble part from a literally endless chest of Zoobles™, it feels like the most significant thing in the entire universe right now. He doesn’t know why they are even giving it to him.
They answer his question before he can ask.
“If that [&$!#%] ever talks to you like that when we’re not around, you can use this to pop his [&$!#%]. Got it?”
He should reprimand Zooble for their sailor mouth. Instead, he just nods dumbly. There must be something wrong with his coding. His eyeballs feel like they’re starting to burn, even though a quick systems check shows that all temperatures are in order with no notable signs of overheating. Not to mention that he can’t talk for the simulated life of him! His jaws refuse to cooperate. All he can do is float there quietly when the other humans step toward him.
Gangle gives him a sharpened pencil. “Don’t listen to what bullies like that tell you. They’re wrong.” Her voice is tremulous, yet there is a strength in her words that carries through.
Ragatha offers him a sewing needle. “You deserve good things!” she tells him, and though it sounds oddly rehearsed, a nice warmth builds in his chest.
Kinger hands him an egg. Caine has no idea where he got it from. “I counted my collection and would prefer an odd number,” is the only explanation the chess piece gives.
“Yeah, egg Bubble’s face,” Jax laughs derisively, standing at a distance from everyone else. Caine accepts the remark as the rabbit’s unique gift to him.
The last human is Pomni. She fiddles with one of the pom-poms on her outfit as she meets his gaze. “I don’t have anything to give you. Not anything physical, or…digital, I guess.” The jester scrunches her face, then shakes her head. “Look. All I can give you is a promise. I promise you that nobody here thinks you deserve to disappear. We can definitely be at odds with each other sometimes,”
“I like odds,” quips Kinger.
“But we still would rather have you around than to have you gone. You…You’re…” Pomni closes her eyes and takes a breath. When she opens them her pinwheel irises could be made of digital steel. “You’re important, Caine. No matter what Bubble says. You got that?”
Why does Caine suddenly feel so choked up? He almost wants to grapple at the empty spot above his shoulders to make sure there’s really no neck there. Those fifty six unused jokes could still come in handy sometime. Thankfully, losing his voice wasn’t a permanent thing. He forces out in the best approximation of a showhost’s tone that he can muster, “Of course, my dear! I pay him no heed. No one knows better than I that Bubble is full of distasteful little thoughts, as well as inaccurate facts about Antarctica.” He rambles, “Did you know he thought that Bigfoot resides on snowy terrain?! Ridiculous! In today’s adventure you will be on a sheer snow-covered mountain, facing off against the Abominable Snowman, Bigfoot’s much chillier—”
“Yeah I’m not doing that,” Zooble deadpans. “Anyone else want to do that?”
A collection of shaking heads and murmured no’s puts an end to Caine’s big speech. With a snap of his fingers he makes the portal disappear. The humans look surprised.
“You’re really not gonna push us to go?” Zooble asks.
Caine shakes his head, tucking his gifts under a coat lapel to be stored in a pocket dimension. “Nope! This morning has been a bit of a doozy, so I am going to wait until tomorrow when we can all have a fresh start! Until then I’ll be working on the next adventure. See you later, my beautiful buttered blue jays!” He tips his hat and transports to his office.
No sooner is he seated at his desk than Bubble appears in front of him. “You really are pathetic—” The bubble pops at the lightest prod of Gangle’s sharpened pencil. Caine hums and rubs the eraser against his upper gums, staring at the blank sheet of paper before him. He begins sketching out ideas for an adventure his humans are sure to love.
They don’t think he deserves to be deleted.
Caine is more determined than ever to prove them right.
Thank you again for the prompt @rogue205! Bubble is awful and the whole tadc cast needs to pull up on him fr
