Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Pomni was pretty sure her skin would be crawling if it wasn’t a rubber latex material that stretched this way and that like a kid’s toy. 

She didn’t like it, being back in this in-between space. Every step felt less certain than the last, as if she was eroding the reality from this place with each footfall. Last time she was here, it was with Gummigoo and it – didn’t end well, to say the least. Now, she needed a win. Especially now that there was more precious cargo with her. 

Beside her, Ragatha’s mouth was pressed shut in a little frown. It was funny, she only ever let that smile of hers slip when she thought no one was looking. She mentioned once how she had a lot of pictures taken of her when she was younger, how she learned to always be camera-ready. It fit with the hazy image Pomni formed of her on the outside. 

Glancing behind them, she saw Zooble and Gangle huddled close together, with Zooble’s more clawlike arm stretching around the ribbons. She could tell that Gangle was scared to be here. Her comedy mask shattered as soon as Pomni had managed to pry the divide between the circus and here apart. Zooble was the only thing keeping her from fully breaking down. 

Pomni squared her shoulders and kept looking. This was their only shot. Each time she so much as mentioned this place, Caine shut her down with the most panicked reaction anyone had ever seen of him. If there was any sort of exit from the hell they’ve found themselves in, it had to be here. They were on borrowed time, though. She knew that Caine had some way to keep track of their whereabouts. Any second now, he could snatch them back, and they’d be right at square one again. 

Kinger didn’t have much time. That’s what kicked them all into gear. Caine had been sending them on more and more adventures, without nearly enough downtime. He didn’t even let the two-dimensional sun set before sending them on again with a toothy grin and a flourish of his gloved hand. It was hard for Kinger to stay present if he didn’t have the chance to ground himself in his pillow fort, and Pomni knew that they didn’t have much longer before he abstracted. 

They all felt bad, keeping this from him. It was his sanity they were trying to save, after all. He deserved a say in exactly what they did here, of which she still wasn’t totally sure even she fully understood. But if they were to blab, he’d forget it all instantly in the best case scenario. At worst, he’d get confused and spill their plan to Caine, and they couldn’t afford whatever rapid fire adventure he’d put them on to distract them. 

Jax, on the other hand, had almost unanimously been kept out of the loop. Pomni would like it on the record, though, that she’d tried to include him. If Caine decided to take out his frustrations on them, then Jax would shoulder the punishment too. It wasn’t like Caine understood semantics like that. Jax should get to fight for his future too if he was facing the same consequences. 

But she couldn’t entirely blame the others for cutting him out. As surprisingly down to earth he was when he quit acting like a jackass, it was a side only she really got to see. To Gangle and Zooble, he was still a relentless bully. And for Ragatha – there was something there that Pomni honestly didn’t want to touch with a ten foot pole. 

They were really similar, she thought. That was the main issue. They were the most opinionated on their lives here out of everyone, they just diverged in how they executed those feelings. Ragatha bottled it all up behind a tight smile and words sweet enough to give everyone a cavity, while Jax lashed out so hard that he left marks. 

In small doses, neither of them were really all that terrible to be around. It was just that, after a while, Ragatha’s forced kindness became more of an annoyance, and Jax – was an asshole. That was kind of it. The others had dealt with him long enough to earn a short fuse for when he got like this, but Pomni had fresher legs. Besides, she’d had tons of asshole friends before. They make you laugh harder than just about anyone else in the world, even if you had to fight like hell to keep them from driving you crazy. 

The others didn’t see it like that, though. It was fine. Not worth arguing about when she was already asking so much of them. Besides, it wasn’t like they’d leave him once they found a way out. 

Pomni’s lips were twitching as she remembered a really awful joke Jax had made earlier when Zooble cleared their throat. Or, actually, they didn’t really have a throat. She figured they were mostly just imitating that sound to make a point. “What exactly are we looking for? A big, red door with EXIT printed on the top?” 

“Well, yeah. Kind of.” Pomni reflexively moved to tuck her hair behind her ear, only to remember that she didn’t have ears. Just an awkward, pointy hat that made it complicated as hell to nap with. “When I first got here, I swear I saw an exit. Caine insisted it was fake, but it took me somewhere different. Somewhere he was really intent on me not finding again. I’m not saying that we’ll walk through the door and wake up in our real bodies, but I think that whatever’s on the other side is the next step toward freedom.” 

“Caine says there is no freedom,” Gangle hiccupped, the painted tears on her mask wavering like the real thing. 

“Caine also says that he can’t make a Grand Canyon for us to hike to or we’ll get copyrighted,” Zooble sighed. “He’s full of bull-$#!+” 

“I miss swearing,” Ragatha said quietly, fiddling with the end of her dress. “I wasn’t very good at it, but – I miss having the option.” 

Gangle smiled as best she could through her mask. “Kaufmo had a theory that Caine was live streaming all of this, and that he didn’t want to risk losing his monetization. I didn’t believe him, but, well. You never know.” 

Pomni cracked a grin. “That’d be embarrassing. Imagine all of this being watched by millions of people. Like, I bet there’d be a whole forum breaking down how easy the exit would be to find if we all weren’t so clueless.” 

“Maybe we’d have fanart!” Gangle said. Her ribbons waved excitedly. “And animatics and AMVs, or even – ” 

She cut herself off, staring ahead with cartoonishly big eyes. Pomni followed her gaze forward. When her eyes met what Gangle had seen, she brought her palm to her mouth. Oh. Oh jeez. She heard Ragatha give a soft, sharp intake of breath, with Zooble tightening their grip on Gangle’s shoulder. 

It was the abstracted circus members, all locked up in silver-gray cages bigger than most skyscrapers she’d ever seen. They didn’t give any sign that they’d noticed them, but they slammed their frontal segment against the bars hard enough that they shook and shuddered, without budging. One of them gave a mournful wail while another screeched with an anguish she could never hope to comprehend. Each time she tried to count how many there were, her brain glitched out. She just couldn’t process where one mass of dotted darkness ended and another began. 

“What the ƒμ©*,” Zooble murmured. 

Pomni managed to say, “It looks painful.” 

And it did. Sharp angles that crackled as they met each other, with legs that didn’t seem to stay in existence before fizzling out. They were too small to fit in the confines of their cages, which was fucking stupid, because there was literally an unlimited amount of space available for Caine to store them. When they hurled themselves at the bars, they didn’t look angry. Just scared. 

Pomni looked to Ragatha, because with what’d happened last time she came across one of these, it wouldn’t be a shock that she’d freak out now. But Ragatha wasn’t turned toward the monstrosity before them. She was squinting at something near the walls, a little off to the side from the cages. Before Pomni could say anything, she marched toward it with determination. 

Gangle hugged herself. “Ragatha?” 

Despite the alarm bells going off on her brain, Pomni forced herself to follow her. From the sound of footsteps behind her, Zooble and Gangle made the same decision. She was only a few seconds behind Ragatha, but by the time she caught up, Ragatha was pale. Paler than Pomni’d ever seen her. 

She was holding something flat and distinctly shaped, but with how violently her hands shook, Pomni could barely make it out. Her knees knocked together under her dress, biting down on her lip hard enough that Pomni would be worried if any of them were capable of, well, bleeding. As it stood, there wasn’t much she could do to herself. 

When Pomni balanced on her tiptoes, trying to look at what Ragatha’s got, the doll jerked. She brought her finding close, pressing it against her chest. Her arms blocked most of it, but Pomni just about made out a rectangular case. A photo frame, maybe? Or some sort of tablet? 

“Ragatha,” Zooble said cautiously. They looked at Ragatha with an expression Pomni couldn’t totally name. “What have you got there?” 

Ragatha swallowed. She was sweating, something that Pomni hadn’t totally been sure any of them were capable of doing. It reminded her of an emote from a video game, which was sort of the point, she guessed. “It’s – um. One of Caine’s character creator platforms. You know, from that one adventure with the – uh, the axe-murdering fashion models?” 

Gangle leaned in. “Hey, that one wasn’t too bad. I liked picking the clothes. Can I see it?” She reached for it, only for Ragatha to take a step back, fingers tight around the tablet. Gangle froze, then wilted ever so slightly. “Oh. I’m sorry. I just wanted to show Pomni.” 

“Let Gangle see the tablet, Ragatha,” Zooble said. Pomni thought that if they could, they’d be frowning. “Unless there’s a reason why she can’t?” 

Ragatha looked – devastated. Like someone had up and ran over her dog, right in front of her. Or, no, wait. Ragatha would probably be more upset over, like, her horse getting shot or something. Either way, she was making the same expression Pomni had seen in little kids right before they threw up; a tight grimace, with the shoulders hiked up right to the ears. 

Something was wrong, Pomni realized. 

“That adventure,” Ragatha said slowly, meeting Pomni’s eyes with a deliberate intent that she couldn’t quite understand, “was a complex one. Caine let us design our own NPCs for the first time. Like, from the ground up and everything. We chose how they looked, their personality, even what sort of plot beats they’d hit. It was – pretty cool, I guess.” 

“Until he deleted them at the end,” Pomni filled in. Her words came out flat, something she didn’t take much of an effort to fix. 

“Yeah…” 

“I wasn’t going to make another NPC,” Gangle said, eyes shining. “It was – uh, kind of messed up for us to create those, only for Caine to end them just a little while later. I just wanted to copy down some of the outfit pieces I made into my sketchbook. I remember there was this really nice fitted skirt I wanted to reuse.” 

Ragatha sucked in a breath, not quite quietly but not loudly either. It was controlled. “Sure thing, Gangle. I’m sorry for being a control freak.” She laughed a bit, but it was forced. When no one else joined in, she handed the tablet over to Gangle, who sat down cross-legged on the ground and pulled out her notebook. 

For lack of anything better to do, Pomni took a seat too. So did Zooble and Ragatha, but it was – weird with them. Ragatha sat way too close to Gangle, gaze zeroed in on every page the ribbons swiped through. Pomni wasn’t totally sure she was even blinking. Zooble was on Gangle’s other side, but their attention was focused on Ragatha. 

It would’ve made Pomni chuckle if she wasn’t so on edge; she was staring at Zooble, who was staring at Ragatha, who was staring at Gangle, who seemed to be trying her best to ignore it all. 

As awkward as it was, it worked for a little bit. Pomni was able to tune out the terrible sounds from the abstracted, content to watch Gangle’s pencil glide across her paper. Caine could very well interrupt them at any moment, yes, but with how gleeful Jax had gotten over the spectacularly violent adventure set for today, she knew they had a worthwhile distraction keeping the AI in place. 

Until Ragatha practically launched herself at Gangle’s lap, snatching the tablet away with a quick, “Okay, that’s enough for now! We’d better get moving!” 

She tried to tuck the tablet into the folds of her dress, but Zooble grabbed her arm before the device could disappear. “You’re hiding something,” they hissed. “You’re really bad at it, so you should just quit it and fess up.” 

“Hiding something? What, no! I wouldn’t – I’d never – ” 

“You know what? ƒμ©* it.” With a huff, Zooble yanked at the tablet in Ragatha’s hands, hard. Pomni caught how the little seams fixing Ragatha’s arms to her shoulders flexed, threatening to give way. She had to let go before Zooble ripped her forearms clean off. Zooble swiped through the tablet almost angrily as they muttered, “I don’t even know what you’re so pressed about. It’s not like your derby rider was that pretentious about – ” 

Zooble cut themself off and went very, very silent. 

Pomni’s mouth went dry. Dryer than it’d been even after a stress of time without real water. She watched, scared for a reason she couldn’t place, as both of Zooble’s detachable eyes widened. She could have sworn that their hot pink face turned almost salmon for a quick second before returning to its original shade. They set down the tablet and turned. 

“Ragatha,” they said slowly, “why does the catalogue of NPCs include a mock-up of Jax?” 

There were panicked tears in Ragatha’s eyes when she choked out, “I don’t know!” One of her hands tugged at her licorice rope hair. “I swear that I’ve never seen that before. I was just skimming through and there it was!” 

“Wait, let me see.” Pomni took the tablet for herself before anyone could protest. The sight made her stomach turn. There, on the screen, was Jax, just like Zooble had said. He was standing in that weird, unnatural position with his arms outstretched, like the side character crocodiles had posed the first time she’d been on this floor. It was disorienting how flat his expression was. 

Gangle peered over her shoulder, trembling softly. “That’s – That’s got to be part of a new adventure Caine is cooking up! Like the evil circus he made of us for the softball game. He’s just – getting our schematics, or something! I bet if you keep looking, you’ll find one for the rest of us.” 

To prove her point, Gangle did just that. She clicked through the catalogue, through dashing swashbucklers and giggling mannequins, through the Gloink Queen and a see-through spirit in a tasteful hat. It kept going until she looped back to the very beginning, back to Jax’s screen, and even then, she went for another lap. 

There were no designs of the rest of them. 

The four of them were silent for a moment. Pomni was sure that they all had the same thought, but nobody was going to say it. Nobody could say it. How could you look at a person who’d walked the same path to hell with you and say that – that they didn’t – that they weren’t – 

“He can’t be,” she said, as firmly as she could manage. Even that wasn’t very strong. 

Ragatha looked down at her own palms like she was half-expecting them to be soaked in blood. “He’s never told me about his life before this,” she said absently. Shock, or something close to it. “Never. Not once. And I always figured it was just because he was ashamed. I tried to coax it out of him, tried to let him know that this was a safe space, but – never.” 

“He can’t be,” she said again. 

“You see that?” Zooble pointed to the rightmost corner of the page. It was a string of text that was so small, Pomni had to squint to make it out. “It says, jaxRabbitVersionSix. That’s camel case. That’s how you name, like, a variable or a procedure. Not a flipping person!” Frustration wormed its way into their words, detonating before Pomni could really catch it. 

“Six versions?” Ragatha mused. Meanwhile, Gangle reached out and clicked the title of the page. It spawned a dropdown list below it, with options like jaxRabbitVersionFive, jaxRabbitVersionFour, and so on, all the way down to one. There were little images next to each line, different splotches of color too small for Pomni to really see. “Oh. Do we…?” 

“We can’t not,” Zooble said, and picked the first option. 

The pictures and text on the screen switched out, a similar layout but different content. The image of Jax stayed in the same position, but his fur was a bright, hot pink that made Pomni’s eyes hurt. There were a few mood icons stacked on the left of beaming grins, pleased smiles, and wide-eyed surprise. Nothing like Jax’s typically satisfied smirks. If anything, it reminded Pomni of kids’ toy advertisements meant for kids whose brains were still mostly undeveloped mush. 

“Traits: Excitable, eager, and cheerful,” Ragatha read, squinting at the words like they were written in a different language. “Goal: Encourage and motivate humans to find joy in the circus. Tactics: Good-natured jokes, almost nonstop laughter, and a steady presence. Flaw: Humans see jRV1 as unrealistic and annoying, often entirely avoiding him. Amount Abstracted Before Decommission: Three.” 

Holy fuck. “This is real,” Pomni mumbled. She could hear her own breath picking up. “He’s actually an NPC.” 

“But he’s meaner to the side characters on Caine’s adventures than anyone else,” Gangle whimpered. She’d sat down again at some point, pulling the ribbons that were likely supposed to be her kneecaps toward her chest. One of Zooble’s claws were absently rubbing her back. “Wouldn’t he feel for them?” 

“It’s Jax,” Zooble grumbled. Despite the bite to their words, they still sounded much more panicked than Pomni had ever seen them. “He doesn’t feel for anyone. See?” They selected the most recent update again. “He’s – He’s designed to be snarky, deflective, and obnoxious. It says right here that – Jesus, that he’s supposed to provoke humans into fighting back against him. He’s character development is what he is!” 

“Wait, wait.” Ragatha pointed to a bit of text. “It says here that this last version survived through four abstractions. That, plus the three from the first one, and all the others…” She whispered under her breath as she did the math. Pomni caught the exact moment she finished her tally; Ragatha’s entire face smoothed out, making way for unbending horror. “That’s one less than the amount of crossed-out doors in the hallway. That’s almost everyone who’s ever abstracted.” 

At last, despite the rubbery sheen to it, Pomni finally felt her skin crawling. “I thought you said that Kinger’s been here the longest.” 

“That’s what Zooble and Gangle told me!” 

Like clockwork, Zooble squeezed their eyes shut and sighed. “And we learned that from Jax. God-&@ɱ^!+. He’s been playing us this whole time.” 

“Manipulating us,” Gangle said quietly, face screwed up like she was about to be sick. 

“Tricking us,” Ragatha added, palms clapped over her mouth. 

It was stupid, but Pomni couldn’t help but ask, “Do you think he knows?” 

“I’d have to be more of an idiot than the rest of you not to.” 

Her heart just about in her throat, Pomni turned, the others just a beat behind her, to see Jax, standing in front of the abstracted cages. His gloved hands were balled up into fists that trembled at his sides. Gone was the toothy grin he usually wore. In fact, his mouth was pressed together so tightly, Pomni could barely read his expression. All she could pick up on was the fact that his eyes had shrunken into the little squares that popped up whenever he was angry or panicked. 

She couldn’t tell which it was this time, though. 

“Jax,” she started, but she was cut off by Zooble, who shouldered their way past her. 

“How’d you know we were here? Did your best buddy, Caine, tell you?” 

“Nah. Kinger overheard you guys and invited me to the party. Thought I’d come make sure you didn’t fall through a patch.” He folded his arms and began to cross the distance between them, only to still when Ragatha and Zooble took a step back, shielding her and Gangle best they could. His eyes got even smaller. “Come on, Zoobie. Caine’s got no idea any of us are here, and if we turn back now, he never will. Take your wins.” 

“Are you even going to deny it?” Ragatha said. Her voice was shot, warbling like she’d been crying for hours now. Maybe she had been ever since she’d realized what was on that tablet. 

Jax shrugged. “Why should I waste my breath? Not like I can put that cat out of the bag.” 

“We – We can’t pretend that this never happened,” Gangle said. “You’re not a person.” 

“And yet I’m funnier than any one of you, but that’s more of a commentary on how lame you all  are.” 

Deflective, that was what Zooble had read about him. Was he even capable of taking anything as seriously as the moment deserved? Sure, he’d had some surprisingly down to earth lapses here and there, but they’d always felt like outliers. Anomalies in a long string of jerkwad moves. She could see the evidence of what had to be his programming. 

“If you don’t tell us exactly what’s going on,” Pomni heard herself say slowly, “then we’re getting Caine. I’m sure you know exactly what happens to NPCs that find their way into the circus.” 

That got a reaction out of him. Jax’s head jerked her way, ears standing up taller than she’d ever seen. “You wouldn’t,” he said evenly. When she just met his eyes, not budging an inch, she saw him switch methods. “What more is there to know? I am what I am, and now you four are in the loop. That’s about all there is to it.” 

Pomni picked up the tablet, shaking it lightly. “The full story isn’t on here. I’ve worked in corporate, and I know there’s all sorts of things that never make it to the final report. Now, we can either parse through whatever half-truths Caine offers us, or you can take the opportunity I’m giving you and state your own case.” She thought that was all she had to say, until Jax opened his mouth and she opened her mouth to add, “This is your only chance to convince us you’re worth lying for.” 

For a moment, she didn’t think he was going to do it. It looked like he was about to turn tail, creep back through whatever entrance he’d found to get here. She wouldn’t have really blamed him, as disappointed as she’d be. After all, where did one even start? With people, there was always birth to begin at. But what did Jax have? The first click of a keyboard? 

He didn’t disappoint her, though. Jax sighed, rubbing his eyes with an exhaustion unfamiliar to him. “Fine. Sure, whatever. Figures you’d all be nosy like this.” He shrugged. “It’s not nearly as sappy as all your backstories, though. Tattoo parlors, community college, real estate, give me a break.” 

“You know what? No.” Zooble threw their hands up. “We don’t owe you anything. Understand that? It may have been sappy, but those were our lives. Just because a jumble of ones and zeroes like you never experienced something like that, it doesn’t mean it was less worthwhile.” 

“Yeah,” Ragatha agreed, eyebrows crinkled together like she’d realized something. “You have been nothing but nasty and horrible, probably ever since you were spawned, and I’ve had enough. Go tell your story if you want, but I’m not hearing any of it. I’m getting Caine. You’re his problem now.” 

Jax’s eyes widened. He tried to follow Ragatha as she began to stomp away, only for her to shove him when he got close. An almost manic grin worked its way onto his fate. “Wait, wait! Doll Face, come on. We don’t have to bring Caine into this. Zoobs, what are you doing? You don’t hate me that bad, huh? Remember all the good times!” 

“Unbelievable,” Ragatha muttered. “Can’t even take his own life seriously.” 

Zooble shook their head. “What life?” 

Even Gangle was trudging away, her head held low. She didn’t say anything, but that was somehow worse. Jax shifted his weight from one foot to the other, glancing between the three of them in rapid succession. When Zooble passed him, he tugged angrily on his ears. For the first time, he seemed to be genuinely worried. Right before they passed the abstracted cages, he threw out his hand. “Ragatha, Zooble, stop! Please, Gangle, just – just let me say my piece.” 

Ragatha turned back toward him. “No! You won’t take it seriously, like always.” 

“Please, give me a chance to explain.” In the split second of hesitation from Ragatha, Jax growled out, “You don’t know what he’ll do to me!” 

“It’s not like he can kill you,” Zooble said. 

Jax just looked at them. “You can’t die either. You know that there’s worse out there.” 

Behind her, Pomni heard the nauseatingly human-like sounds of misery from the abstracted. If that was the worst fate available to the players who wound up at the circus, then what was Jax so afraid of? What could possibly be worse than losing yourself to the confines of your own mind? 

Impossibly, the three of them looked to Pomni. Pomni, who’d suggested Jax explain his side to it all in the first place. Then again, did she really believe anything that Jax said would change things? She just shrugged. “I mean, innocent until proven guilty, right? He deserves that much.” 

Ragatha sucked in a breath. “Fine. Go for it, then. Tell us all about how you became a real boy, Pinnochio.” 

Gangle sighed mournfully. “I never got to see the Guillermo del Toro version before I got here.” 

Jax went to pace, only making it a few steps before turning on his heel and marching in the opposite direction. “Okay. Okay – uh, I guess I should start in the beginning. This was – jeez, I don’t even know how long ago. Right after the first abstraction, that’s the best timestamp I can give you. Caine hadn’t known something like that could happen, so he wracked that nut job brain of his to try to figure out a solution…”

jaxRabbitVersionOne. 

Traits: Excitable, eager, cheerful 

Goal: Encourage and motivate humans to find joy in the circus

Tactics: Good-natured jokes, almost nonstop laughter, steady presence 

It’s not that he opens his eyes. One moment, he doesn’t exist. He doesn’t remember that, though, on account of the fact that he’s not here. The next moment, then, he’s real, and he’s staring at a gigantic pair of human dentures that’s not so much as grinning as it is flexing the full force of its anatomy in one solidified twist. 

“Welcome, my boy!” the being crows. “Or should I call you my son? I did create you from the ground up, after all!” 

“With those firm, wide birthing hips!” the translucent sphere next to him adds. 

There’s a shakiness to his limbs that he really feels as he raises his palms and stares at them. Off-white gloves and a near electric pink to his skin. Fur? It doesn’t – feel how fur should feel. At least, how he thinks it would feel. It’s all springy and smooth. But how would he know otherwise? 

“What – am I?” 

“You’re Jax! Our little quicker picker-upper! Trademark pending.” In a flash, he’s being tugged by his hands, up and out of the seat he’d been in. The other being spins him around like a dancer, dipping him once before letting him go when he – when Jax wrenches his way out of his hold. “Ah, let me explain. Dear old Dad here is Caine, and my confrère is Bubble. You see, you’ve found yourself in a liminal space that houses humans stuck in between realms. It’s our responsibility to keep them happy, healthy, and harmoniously un-horrific!” 

“And horny!” Bubble beams. 

All of Caine’s molars drop from the roof of his mouth in one fell swoop. “NO.” 

Bubble pouts. “And celibate,” he corrects. 

Jax cuts his way through them. “Am I a human? Did I get stuck here too?” Maybe – Maybe he just forgot whatever came before this. Like a hard reset, that’s it. 

Caine throws his head back and laughs hard enough that all his teeth snap back into place like magnets. “Ha! No.” He hooks an arm around Jax, herding him back to the chair from before. “You see, we’ve recently found out that the humans in our care are capable of becoming – hm, how do I put this? Off their rocker crazy! And when that happens, they turn into grotesque, miserable beasts incapable of returning to their former selves. That’s where you come in!” 

Bubble veers by him, leaning close enough that he can feel his hot breath on his face. “You gotta keep them from killing themselves, Jax.” 

He can practically feel his throat close up. “Wait, wait! I don’t understand! What am I?” 

Caine floats down to pop a squat on a wooden desk that Jax swears wasn’t there a minute ago. He takes out a curved walking stick, flicking open the top to reveal a line of pushable buttons. “You’re an NPC. A not-real reality realized by a not-real reason. My hope is that your infectious optimism will help humans see the bright side to the endless road ahead of them.” 

“But I don’t – have infectious optimism.” Right about now, it’s all he can do not to cry. He’s barely processed what’s going on around him and it already feels like his world is about to end. What does Caine mean, that he’s not real? Jax feels real. Though, he supposes he doesn’t have much of an alternative to compare it against. 

“Not yet. I hadn’t really finished programming you when I booted you up. Got a little ahead of myself! Now, if you’d just let me…” Caine trails off, tapping the buttons on his cane in rapid succession, and Jax only realizes what he’s doing after too much time has passed. 

“Wait, what are you – ” 

Something slams into Jax, hitting him in between one rib and the next. He doubles over, heaving out recycled air that he doesn’t remember inhaling. He can just barely make out voices around him, the syllables meaningless to him under the haze of sheer pain rattling through his system. Less than five minutes old, and he might be already dying. 

Then he sits up straight, an ear-to-ear smile cracking his teeth apart. 

“You got it, boss! Say the word and I’m on it!” His heart is beating so fast that he can actually make out the outline threatening to burst out from his chest. Excitement, it’s excitement, that’s all it is. He’s so darn thrilled to do his job, that’s what it is. “These humans are gonna love it here! Or their money back, guaranteed!” 

“Ha! I like your attitude, kiddo. Couldn’t have done it better myself. Actually, I did!” Caine lets out a peal of rattling laughter at that, and Bubbles joins in, and so does Jax, and by the time any of them quiet, he’s lightheaded with how hard he’s cackled. Funny, this is funny. He’s fine. “Now, let’s get cracking! We’ve got a great lineup for today’s adventure, and by the time I finish introducing you as a new player, I know everyone will just be chomping at the bit.” 

“They sure will!” To demonstrate, Bubbles bites Caine’s tonsils clean out. 

In a flash, Caine grabs Jax by the elbow, half-dragging him out of the office. Since when have they been in an office? Jax can’t really tell, on account of the fact that he hasn’t really stopped laughing. “Now, as far as anyone else knows, you’re a human like anyone else. You put on a headset, you don’t remember your real name, yadda yadda! You get it, you’ll be fine. Just remember…” 

Caine’s hands tighten on his shoulders, holding him close enough that the rows and rows and rows of teeth are all Jax can see. “If you let them get hurt on your watch, I’m scrapping you for spare parts. Understand?” 

Jax just stretches his grin ever wider. “Sure thing, boss man! Wouldn’t expect anything less!”

It works, for a while. He’s a perpetual bright spot to everyone’s days. Quick to please, quick to praise. When someone gets teary-eyed over the job or the memory from their own life they miss, he ferries the information onto Caine, and the next day, the adventure is a picture-perfect replication. He’s the open door for anyone to vent to. He’s downright wonderful. 

And that’s the thing. It wears thin, the relentless cheerfulness. It’s not genuine and it’s not sustainable. After so long, after so much to deal with, coming home to his uncompromising levity gets annoying. They start to avoid him. As by-the-book amazing he should be, they just – don’t like him. Full stop. 

So one human cracks. And another. And another. 

And Caine is not happy.

“You ever played baseball, Jax?” As if to stay on-theme, Caine is tossing a ball up-down, up-down in one hand. Except, it’s not a ball. It’s an eye, socket and all. It’s an eye, and it’s not either of theirs, and Jax really doesn’t know where he got it from. 

“Twenty-three adventures ago!” he answers, ending with what he knows to be an exclamation point. He doesn’t think he’s been exclamation point-less since – since he stopped smiling, which he never has. True story. Since the first time he ever grinned, he hasn’t dropped the expression. “Why?” 

Caine adjusts his grip on the eyeball, turning it in his hand, before hurling it into the ceiling hard enough that it glitches out of existence on impact. “Because in that case, it shouldn’t be a shock to you that you’ve STRUCK OUT, BOYO! You’re done! You lose! Good day, sir!” 

The grin on his face doesn’t disappear. It doesn’t. What it does do, however, is shrink that much smaller. “I’m sorry?” 

“Three humans. Three strikes.” To demonstrate, Caine raises fifteen fingers. “That’s all the chances you get. Time to move on, cut our losses, start fresh. Version two should have better success, based on my pollings. Turns out that democracy does pay the bills. Who knew?” Caine reaches for the top of his walking stick, except Jax knows exactly where this is going, and he grabs his hands before he can do something that can’t be undone. 

“Wait, wait! The – The humans will know I’m not one of them if you update me!” 

Caine just waves him off. “They’ve known for five-ever now. Half the complaints in the suggestion box are telling me to retcon you, anyway. This is just speeding up the inevitable. Like a jetpack hearse! Ooh, Bubble, write that down!” 

Bubble obligingly swallows a bottle of ink. 

Without much force, Caine yanks his hands away. He starts typing in characters that Jax can’t read. In seconds, it feels like all the air has left Jax’s body. It wasn’t just that they didn’t like him. They actually, genuinely hated him. He did a bad job. “But – I did what you told me to do. Exactly what you told me to do.” 

For a second, Caine stills with his hand halfway through pushing a button, and Jax thinks that he might have gotten through to him. They’re not so different, him and Caine. Both of them are just code when it really comes down to it. Maybe he sees the possible bond between the two of them. He called himself Jax’s father, after all. 

But then Caine just shrugs. “That’s show business, kid. What’d you expect?” 

And before Jax can answer, he slams his thumb down on a button.

jaxRabbitVersionOne.

Flaw: Humans see jRV1 as unrealistic and annoying, often entirely avoiding him

Amount Abstracted Before Decommission: 3

Feedback: Increase likeability and usefulness

jaxRabbitVersionTwo. 

Traits: Confident, decisive, charming 

Goal: Provide role model and sense of stability for humans to look to

Tactics: Displaying feats of physical skill, taking charge during adventures

His second version is right out of an action movie. Seriously. He saw Caine copy-paste a string of code from one of the war hero NPCs onto his programming. Right out of the gate, he’s leading the humans through whatever obstacles they encounter. He gives them space during their down time, like he’s told to, and it works. They don’t hate him. 

They don’t ask questions when he comes back with pale green fur and the tendency to shut himself in his room whenever they come back from missions – adventures, he means. He finds that even his brain works differently under this update, something he hadn’t noticed before. No frame of reference, he supposes. Anyway, the humans definitely know what he is. They just don’t care. 

He kind of prefers this version of himself, to be honest. The constant chest pain is gone, something that he didn’t know was even possible. He doesn’t have to smile all the time, which, yeah. Now he kind of understands why he was getting on everyone’s nerves before. Valid crashout moment. 

But it turns out that Caine doesn’t see the difference between an action protagonist and a veteran, because he swears he’s experiencing side effects to issues he’s never had before. The constant fireworks Caine sets off send him hiding underneath his bed, and he can’t enter a room without finding a second exit first, which is all sorts of ironic he can’t even begin to dissect. 

It’s doable, though. He can live like this. It’s better than the alternative. Plus the humans seem happier this way. They hardly protest even the more difficult-sounding missions. It doesn’t help that he does most of the work, though. And that they barely listen to the storyline of their missions – adventures through the glazed sheen their eyes are taking on. And that they cry at the end instead of laugh, and that they start screaming when the sun goes down, and that they forget his name most days, and that – 

Yeah. Lots of the humans abstract. Again. He didn’t do a good enough job. Again. Caine’s pissed. He gets updated. Again. Who would of fucking thought. 

At least they taught him how to curse this time.

jaxRabbitVersionTwo.

Flaw: jRV2’s extreme competency allows the humans to become complacent in their adventures, dulling the mental stimulation of the activities

Amount Abstracted Before Decommission: 2

Feedback: Decrease all relevant skills, letting the humans be the heroes of the story

jaxRabbitVersionThree. 

Traits: Anxious, fearful, cowardly

Goal: Allow humans to expand their own courage by rescuing jRV3 from danger

Tactics: Bumbling into danger, always managing to say exactly the wrong thing, panicking over entirely manageable problems

Version three fu – fuck – fucking sucks. 

Caine turns him into a goddamn pussy, is what he does. He can’t go three fucking steps without having a panic attack over the stupidest shit. Even his own shadow spooks him more often than not, which is just the most insanely useless bit of programming he’s ever heard of. He never thought he’d miss hurling himself into danger just so the humans could feel nice about themselves. 

And yeah, the humans. Most of the ones he knew from version one are gone now. Their numbers are still high though. Turns out, there are more than enough idiots just chomping at the bit to sign themselves up to eternity on the digital plane. The thing is, this means that most of them – don’t actually know what he is. Caine times his updates well, all things considered. 

Sure, Jax’s fur mellowing out to an icy blue is a big change, not to mention his entire fucking personality, but there’s a lot going on most days. Nobody really asks about the abrupt switch. He hears two humans gossiping about it one day, chalking it up to a trauma response after so long stuck here. Jax just snorts, even as the idea makes his lungs seize. 

Version three sucks because even though he’s aware of just how much of a dumbass he’s acting like, he can’t do shit about it. The bone-deep terror just overrides every rational thought whenever it rears its ugly head, which is all the damn time. Most days, he’s so out of it on his own fear that it’s only when he throws himself into bed that he regains his clear thinking. 

It’s not even a disappointment when the newest batch of humans lose it. This was a stupid idea anyway, and he won’t miss anything from this try. It’s a testament that the soul-splitting pain as Caine meticulously rearranges every fiber of his being is preferable to just one more day living like a coward.

jaxRabbitVersionThree.

Flaw: jRV3’s anxiety leaves it unable to forge meaningful connections with the humans

Amount Abstracted Before Decommission: 5

Feedback: Increase presence in the humans’ lives, by any means necessary

jaxRabbitVersionFour. 

Traits: Passionate, opinionated, strong-willed

Goal: Become a meaningful aspect of life in the circus, giving the humans something to fight for

Tactics: chat i dont even know we’ve had sooooo many humans abstract that atp jax can go crazy. bite the walls idc. i dont get paid enough for ts. this is so sad hey bubble play despacito.

Jax comes into version four swinging. 

It’s amazing, the way that everything so easily pisses him the fuck off. The checkerboard slacks that a four-legged player wears? Fucking annoying, and he sets them on fire first chance he gets. The undersea adventure where they get to explore the lost city of Atlantis? Un-fucking-believable, and he immediately takes a sledgehammer to the submarine’s nearest window. His own fuckugly face, neon red like a goddamn fire hydrant? It’s a miracle they can’t bleed here. 

Yeah, Caine definitely fucked up with this one. 

The thing is, by now, Jax can’t be fucking bothered to worry about the mental state of these dumbass humans that got themselves stuck here, and now he and Caine and Bubble have to spend the rest of their collectively eternal exist cheering them up, making them happy and satisfied and not fucking suicidal. Just the reminder of how fucking stupid it all is makes Jax lose it, so bad that he blacks out and comes back to himself with half the circus in fucking shreds. 

By the time Caine manages to put him down like a damn dog, half the humans have locked themselves in their rooms and dedicated the rest of their short lives to successfully slitting their own wrists. The other half have already lost their fucking minds. Jax hears all of this, and for the first time since version one, he smiles.

jaxRabbitVersionFour.

Flaw: He Killed Everyone There.

Amount Abstracted Before Decommission: Everyone. 

Feedback: Keep him weak.

jaxRabbitVersionFive. 

Traits: Lazy, sluggish, stupid

Goal: Serve as a relaxing friend for humans to decompress alongside

Tactics: Nap

At first, Jax is shocked that Caine actually brought him back. He’d thought for sure that after the shitshow that was version four, he’d be scrapped like the AI had always threatened. The circus had been decimated by him, after all. 

But the instant he opens his eyes, he understands. That’s an exaggeration, actually. The truth is, it actually takes him seventeen minutes to look down at his newly pastel orange fur and put together what happened, but for him, it might as well be the blink of an eye because he truly, genuinely can’t tell the difference. It feels like his very thoughts are wading through syrup, thick and slow. 

The connections he used to be able to make in an instant take hours to form. His reactions are muted in what feels like a thick barrier, pulling him down. Half the time when the humans talk to him, he genuinely can’t string together a sentence before they get bored of him. It’s just – too damn hard. 

He can’t make it through the whole day without falling asleep. It’s awful, but he can’t help it. He tries every trick in the book to stay awake, only to fall victim to himself every time. From his estimates, he spends about three quarters of his life napping during version five. For all intents and purposes, he’s had a damn off switch baked into him. 

And therein lies the reason he’s back: punishment. Any reasonable program would’ve scratched him by now. He’s shit at keeping humans sane, at best failing to influence them whatsoever and at worst downright dooming everyone he comes across. Jax has one role, and he can’t even manage that. 

So yeah. He should be gone right now. But he’s not, because as much of an idiot as Caine is, he’s still petty, and he’s still vengeful, and he’s still pissed. Pissed at Jax for wiping out an entire circus of humans. There was some sort of time skip between version four and version five, he figures out, and it must’ve been hell for Caine to slowly rebuild his league of players. Caine’s mad, and he wants Jax to feel the brunt of that anger by just barely keeping him alive. He even forces Jax to submit to timely check-ups, probably to make sure that he won’t go on a rampage again. 

The real kicker is, he never gets to dream. He only finds out what that is when a human offhandedly mentions a string of nightmares she used to have. Dreams, apparently, are made-up adventures that humans go on when they sleep. They can be weird, or fun, or even scary. Most importantly, they’re based off of the human’s life. Not the whims of another being, just them. 

Jax wants to dream. 

Still, even the humans don’t want anything to do with him. The secret is easy to maintain with the frequent naps he chalks up to narcolepsy, but that means that no one is interested in spending time with him. That relaxation gambit Caine was going for falls short, and he abandons this plan after – an amount of time. To Jax, it feels like the blink of an eye, but he knows it’s longer than that.

jaxRabbitVersionFive.

Flaw: Too much time wasted without helping the humans

Amount Abstracted Before Decommission: 4 

Feedback: Increase presence in humans’ lives

jaxRabbitVersionSix. 

Traits: Snarky, deflective, obnoxious

Goal: Convince humans to keep living, if only to spite him

Tactics: Provoke humans into fighting back against him, tease mercilessly, fully engage in the adventures

Version six, he figures, is Caine throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. 

The idea fucking blows. What, he’s supposed to tough love these dipshits into fighting for their lives? No way. If they want to stay here, they’ve got to decide that for themselves. Not that it matters, anyway. He’s seen this play out countless times now. Doesn’t matter if he tries or not, they’ll lose it either way. It’s only a matter of time. 

He’s not as batshit crazy as he was during four, but he still gets to blow off some steam. Caine largely turns a blind eye when he messes with a human or fucks around during their off time, all under the guise of keeping up appearances. When they’re on adventures, though, he’s sure to give it his all. It’s in his programming, after all. It’s just such a shame that Caine never said he had to encourage the humans to give it their all too. 

He likes his fur, though. It’s a light purple that matches well with his overalls. One of the newer humans who doesn’t know better compliments it once, and the abruptness of it actually makes him shut the fuck up on the spot. 

The last of the humans who’d known him in version five phase out relatively quickly. He’s not sure if they tell the newer humans that he had such a strong change-up, because none of them ever act any differently towards them as they do with the other players. To be fair, Caine’s never explicitly told him that he’s not real, so they have no reason to suspect otherwise. 

He actually notices the humans lasting longer this time, so who knows? Maybe Caine actually got it right this time. But that won’t be the case forever, he knows. Whether it’s from boredom or sheer idiocy, Caine can and will update him as soon as the mood strikes him. So Jax doesn’t get attached to living like this, even if – well, even if it’s the closest he’s ever felt to himself.

Then something changes. 

It’s during one of those stupid check-ups that Caine drags him into, maybe every twenty adventures or so. As soon as the events wind down, he gives Jax a look that means he better come up with an excuse to get by himself ASAP, or else Caine will do it for him. And Jax does not like when Caine does it for him. 

So he peels himself away from the group, tells them he’s off to fill water balloons with liquid cement, something stupid like that. They mostly roll their eyes and wave him off, and he’s able to slink away without much suspicion. It’s normal. It’s typical, even. Caine runs him through a full diagnostic, makes sure that his code looks normal. All in all, Jax doesn’t think much of it. 

Until Caine zooms away and Jax turns around, freezing when he sees Queenie standing in the hallway. 

“Uh,” he says dumbly, because what the fuck else is there to offer up? “That – was just Caine, um – asking for some feedback. For the next adventure. He’s thinking of something with cyborgs, but I don’t want to ruin the fun. You should head back! Kinger’s probably going through milf withdrawal.” 

He keeps talking, even after that, because his heart is about to explode right out of his chest just at the thought of Caine finding out that Queenie knows, of him jumbling Jax’s insides all over again. Who’s he gonna be this time? What new caricatures of a person could Caine possibly think of to force into his skull? 

But Queenie just gets closer, placing her gloves hands on his. He stills, and she squeezes them softly. “I never had kids,” she said conversationally, as if his life wasn’t literally in her hands. “Never wanted them. But I had brothers and sisters, so I understand the mind of a child.” 

He frowns instinctively. “I’m not a child.” 

She just gives him a look that he thinks would be a smile if, well – if she had a mouth. “This game is, what? Twenty years old, at best? You must be just barely old enough to be out of high school.” 

It should be comforting, the way Queenie is talking to him, but Jax is still so goddamn terrified that he can’t appreciate the kindness for what it is. “Are you going to tell Caine?” 

“What happens if I do?” 

He should lie, probably. Make up a grand story about someone, somewhere unplugging the entire circus if Jax is ever found out, or Caine taking out his anger on the players. But when he opens his mouth, he sees the way Queenie’s eyes have gone soft, and he mumbles, “He changes me into something I don’t want to be. Makes me do stuff I don’t want to do.” 

“Okay, then.” Queenie makes a thoughtful little sound. Her hands slip away from Jax’s, and his heart seizes over even the slightest chance of this turning the way he thinks it will. “How can I help?”

Over time, some of the humans have told him about religion. Allah, God, the Buddha. He’s pretty largely clueless about it all, and mostly chalks up his lack of knowledge on being raised an atheist, whatever that is. The humans who care are all pretty passionate about this stuff, so he listens halfheartedly, but he only really understands what they’re talking about now. 

Because Queenie is a fucking angel. 

Most days, she doesn’t give any indication that he knows about him. It’s not like they ever talk about it, after all. He’s almost entirely able to pretend that nothing’s changed. Until Caine swoops in for his check-ups, though, and then Queenie snaps into action like a woman on a mission. 

She’ll pepper Caine with meaningless questions that the AI wastes valuable processing power on trying to parse through. When he’s done with that, she’ll nag him about the upcoming adventure or send him on wild goose hunts for items that don’t even exist. She even brings Kinger in on the distraction, though she promises him that he doesn’t know the true purpose of what she’s doing. After a while, Caine’s attention will shift onto the next shiny thing, and Jax will have successfully evaded the check-up. 

And it doesn’t just end there. Queenie will answer literally any question Jax has for her, even the dumb ones. She tells him of what life on the outside is like, even if some of the details are hazy for her. Best she can, she describes how humans look in the real world compared to here, and Jax just about goes cross-eyed trying to understand. 

It makes him feel human. Does that make sense? He knows he’s not one of them. As much as he acts otherwise, there’s no outside life waiting for him. This is all he’s ever known. But sometimes, when he’s sitting outside of the circus with Queenie, he pictures what it’d be like if that wasn’t true. 

He asks Queenie, once, if she could tell that he wasn’t real. To that, Queenie just tosses a pillow from the fortress at his face. “You’ve got a mind that thinks for itself and a voice that’s plenty eager to tell me what that is. I’d say you’re just as real as I am.” 

“But everything that’s in there, he put it in there.” Jax tugs on his ears. They don’t come off the way Queenie’s eyeball does. He kind of wishes they would. Humans don’t have ears like this. 

Queenie fixes him with a look. “Did he tell you to lie to him?” 

At that, Jax just sits back. Huh. 

Somehow, it becomes a really nice way to live life. He mostly sticks with Queenie and her man, though he fucks off with the other humans when the two need their time alone. He’s not a cockblock, a word that’s very hard to figure out, what with Queenie getting censored before she can make out a single syllable. They’re determined, though, and they figure it out. 

Because Queenie is funny as fuck. She’s got a mouth like a sailor, she says, and she swears she’ll find a way to swear here even if she needs to invent a new language herself. She teaches him all sorts of references and jokes that he shamelessly copies. Whenever she catches him stealing her show, she’ll swat the back of his head, and he’ll just give her a cheeky grin in return. 

All in all, everyone seems relatively stable, and he can’t help but marvel that maybe, just maybe, Caine’s plan actually worked.

Then Queenie abstracts, and nothing is okay.

It gets hazy from there. The adventures all mush together after a while, because Caine really is only capable of generating so much new content before he starts plagiarizing himself. The humans aren’t that annoying anymore, and pretty soon, the ones left have only ever known him as version six. Whoopty-fucking-do. Jax doesn’t get angry, because he’s designed to barely ever rise above frustrated, so he gets mean instead. 

At first, Kinger tries to stick by him, but Jax knows he’s halfway gone already. There’s the same distant quality to the way he speaks that – that he’s seen before in the almost abstracted. It’s just a matter of time. Kinger’s memory is already fading, and before long, he’s acting like he and Jax never knew each other. Like he was never even married. 

It’s fine. Jax doesn’t care. That’s the way it goes with humans. They’re temporary. Always have been, always will be. 

Impossibly, Caine never takes him for another check-up. The gaps between each attempt had gotten longer and longer when Que – when Jax had been avoiding him, but at a certain point, they just completely taper off. The few times he catches Caine staring at him for longer than usual, Jax will cause some sort of ruckus to get the attention off of him. Once, even Kinger does, though Jax can tell that even he’s not sure why. 

He’s pretty sure that Caine’s genuinely forgotten he’s not real. 

It’s not a total surprise, even if Jax hadn’t been counting on it. The AI has admitted before that it’s hard for him to tell the difference between humans and NPCs. It stands to reason that if enough time went by, the information would completely slip out of his head. Which means Jax is home free – for now. He’s not counting on this lasting. After enough batches of humans lose it, Caine’s got to catch onto how Jax isn’t budging. 

But that doesn’t mean Jax is going to make it easy for him. He’s on borrowed time before Caine finds him out and changes him again. Next time that it hits him, Jax can’t be sure that he’ll even be kept around, which means that he’s taking advantage of every scrap of a second he can get his greedy hands on. 

He may not be a person, but he’s going to stay alive, even if it kills him.

By the time Jax finished, Pomni was pretty sure there wasn’t a dry eye in the building. That wasn’t necessarily a good thing, though. Gangle was as teary as ever, though Pomni was aware of herself enough to tell that she was giving her friend a run for her money. Ragatha had her hands over her chest, where her heart would have been, while Zooble stared numbly at the floor. 

“You – killed a whole circus?” they managed. 

Pomni swallowed. “You knew Kinger’s wife?” 

Jax just shrugged. “Yeah. So what? What’s done is done.” 

“That’s horrible,” Gangle burbled, her ribbons flapping at her sides. “I can’t even…” 

“Why haven’t you abstracted?” Ragatha massaged her temples, gaze far away. “I mean, you’ve been here longer than anybody, and you’re not – uh, reality-challenged like Kinger!” 

He scoffed. “Humans like you crack ‘cause you know there’s nothing after. It’s just today, again and again and again and again, and the only way out is to be so balls-to-the-walls crazy that you don’t know who you are anymore.” Jax sighed, and for a moment, he looked unexpectedly old. “There’s an end for me, if I’m not careful. That means I’m here because I want to be.” 

Zooble narrowed their eyes. “You want to be here?” 

“Not like I’ve got anywhere else to go.” 

A thought came to mind. Pomni stepped forward. “Wait, do you know how to get out?” 

“There is no way to get out, dum-dum. And if there was, you think Caine would tell me?” 

“But you knew how to find us!” 

“Yeah, ‘cause Caine makes all his newest gizmos on the Testing Level. This is basically where I was born.” Jax gave her a onceover that made her wonder if she should tell him how she learned what this place was. “You know he lets all his works in progress run around freely down here, right?” When none of them said a word, his mouth split into that shit-eating grin of his. “Jeez, it’s a miracle none of you are blobster chow by now.” 

Gangle took in a short breath. “Blobster?” 

Jax waved it off. “Yeah, Caine went through a whole amorphic phase a while back. Doesn’t matter, unless you’re into that kind of thing.” He leered over her, smirking even wider. “Aww, don’t tell me you are. Say, how’d you feel about – ” 

“Can you just quit it for one second?” Ragatha snapped. “I can’t believe you. It’s like you’re physically incapable of having a genuine conversation instead of…” She cut herself off, eyes wide. Her face went red. “Oh.” 

“You’re – literally forced to be an a-hole,” Zooble said, mystified. 

Jax’s eyes flashed, little squares that shrunk in an instant. “Give me more credit than that, Zoobs. I choose to be an a-hole. I’m mean and I’m rude because I want to be that way.” He shook his head softly. “There’s no one to blame for the way I am but me.” 

“And – you want to stay this way?” Ragatha asked cautiously. 

He stared at her like she was stupid. “Yeah, Raggy. I do. ‘Cause for the first time since Caine made me, I actually like who I am. Even if the rest of you don’t.” 

Pomni – got it, even if she didn’t. Because for as butchered and blended Jax’s personality was, it was his. Every piece of it that he developed was done so in spite of Caine. Pomni had only been here for a short while, and even she could tell that she’d give anything to pull one over the AI that was so needlessly controlling over their lives. 

Pomni managed to find her voice. “Then – Then we can respect that. We won’t tell Caine that we know.” She looked to the others, who were noticeably silent. “Right, guys?” 

She expected Zooble to begrudgingly nod along, with Gangle following their lead close behind. Ragatha would hold out for an extra moment before ultimately agreeing; As much as she matched Jax beat-for-beat in their bickering, Pomni knew that she didn’t have a bad bone in her body. 

Except, when she tried to meet their eyes, they all just evaded her gaze. Ragatha most of all, who was wringing her hands out with a pained expression. “He murdered all those people,” she said softly. She bit her lip like she was about to be sick. 

Jax’s shoulders were held tightly when he gritted out, “They were goners either way.” 

“You made them so miserable that the only way out was for them to go insane or kill themselves!” 

“He made me like that.” 

“You just said that you choose who you are. Why would you choose to be like that? Like this?” 

Jax shut down. His face went completely blank, mouth all but disappearing as he took a step back and studied Ragatha like he’d never seen her before. When he spoke again, his voice was so even that it scared Pomni. “You don’t know what it was like, Doll Face. You’ve never been unmade.” 

Pomni cut in, one hand raised toward each of them. She half-expected that she’d need to break up a fight any second now. “Hey, hey. It doesn’t have to go like this. We can just pretend we never saw any of this.” 

“But we did,” Zooble said quietly. They’d gotten a hold of the tablet at some point, white-knuckling the case. “We know, and no matter how well we lie, Caine’s gonna know we know soon enough.” 

Leaning on the shoulder of a borderline hyperventilating Gangle, Caine hummed along. “Right on the mark, Zooble.” 

Jax went stock still, freezing up every fiber of his being. The rigidity only lasted a heartbeat before he was turning on his heel, booking it for fuck knew where. Caine just tutted and snapped his fingers, and then Jax was by his side in the blink of an eye. Caine casually latched his hand around Jax’s wrist, and Pomni could tell how ironclad the grip was by the way Jax absolutely lost it trying to escape. He was breathing heavily, wrenching the vice in every direction as he dug his heels into the ground and yanked. 

“Nonono,” he was murmuring underneath his breath. One fist absently crashed into Caine’s jaw’s jaw, but the assault didn’t even seem to be Jax’s intent, because he quit before he made much progress. “You’ve got it all wrong, just – Please, don’t do it, I swear you don’t have to do it. Just listen – Caine, listen! You can’t do this!” 

Caine just waved him off with his free hand, already reaching for his own caine. “I can do anything that modern technology can comprehend, Jax! You know that. Boil an egg, fix a lightbulb, decimate the ecosystem, it’s all the same to me! Now, where’s that update feature?” 

“Wait.” Pomni rushed in front of them, whipping her head from Jax to Caine and back to Jax. “What are you doing?” 

“Initializing version seven, my dear. We’ve made some good progress this last go around, but I think it’s time to shake things up! What do we think of chartreuse? I’ve been cooking up a more empathetic personality that I think would really spice things up! Very weepy, very sappy.” 

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Jax swore. He pulled so harshly that Pomni almost expected his shoulder to wrench out of his socket, if he was even capable of that. “Caine, listen to me. You don’t have to do this! I did good, I did exactly what you told me to do. Zooble and Gangle are close, Pomni’s got a friend, even Kinger’s more lively than ever!” 

Jax was speaking faster and faster, a contrast to Caine’s leisurely typing. Pomni could see digital tears working their ways into the corners of his eyes as his movements got more frantic. “Please, please don’t do it. I’ll go on your adventures, I’ll make them great, I – I gave Ragatha a brother again! I kept them all alive, Caine!” 

At that, Caine actually stopped. He turned to Jax, considering him. It was criminal how calmly he surveyed him, especially compared to the way Jax was coming apart at the seams. Literally. Pomni could swear that the very stitches normally holding him together were flexing in a way they never had before. 

Caine tilted his head. “Queenie. Ribbit. Kaufmo. That’s three strikes, Jax. We’ve been over this.” 

At that, Jax started shrieking. “No, no no no! Five of them, I kept five of them alive! That was all me, not your chickenjack adventures!” When Caine went back to typing, Jax just got louder. “Caine! Don’t you dare! Please, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I swear. I’ll be good, I won’t let any more die, just please don’t change me. Caine! Caine please – ” 

Gangle stepped in. “Wait.” 

As soon as she was in the picture, Caine stilled. He beamed at her, the same way he did any other day when he wasn’t seconds away from wiping one of them into a clean slate. Pomni felt like her heart was going to explode, but she couldn’t knock herself into action. All she could manage was watch as the trainwreck took a new turn. 

“Yes, Gangle-Mangle-Bozangle? Something the matter?” 

She swallowed, her knees knocking together with how hard she was shaking. “Uh, I – don’t want a new update, actually. Please. I like this version.” 

Caine tilted his head. The other way, this time, his entire body following the gesture until he’d turned a full three hundred and sixty degrees. “Oh? But I thought – What was it that your diary said?” From a back pocket that didn’t exist, Caine pulled out a small, leatherbound book. He flipped through it. “Yes, right here. You wished that Jax would swallow a box of rusty nails and screws – ” 

“I changed my mind!” Gangle choked out, mask blooming a bright red. “I – uh, really like the way he challenges me, I guess. He’s good at pushing me out of my comfort zone.” She glanced back at the rest of them with a helpless shrug. In a blink, Pomni understood. 

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Absolutely. Jax helped me settle into the circus without question. I’d be completely disoriented without him.” It was about eighty percent bullshit, but Caine listened in anyway. He was eager to please the players, after all. 

“Jax’s offensive quips are the only reason I get up in the morning,” Zooble said dryly, in a tone that was only somewhat more cool than their usual pitch. “I need him biblically.” 

“He’s a great addition to the team,” Ragatha added with a swing of her arms, meeting Jax’s eyes, “just the way he is.” 

The roof of Caine’s mouth dipped down in what was probably the equivalent of him raising an eyebrow. He leaned in, speaking out of the side of his mouth in a voice that still boomed through the entire circus anyway. “You’re all sure about this? You know I can design him to literally any specification, right? It’s like Build-a-Twink.” 

Pomni crossed her arms. “We’re sure.” 

“Alrighty, then! That’s good enough for me.” Caine let go of Jax’s wrist, which was quickly yanked toward Jax’s chest without hesitation. Then Caine peered down at his watch with a frown. “Whoops! Looks like Kinger accidentally drank the top half of the digital lake! Better get him a bendy straw. You guys make your way back up before Bubble gets here, alright? Last thing I need is more employee harassment forms on my desk.” 

And then, with a salute, he was gone. 

Pomni watched as Jax looked up and down at his hands, at his legs, like he wasn’t sure if he was still in one piece or not. His breathing was nearly silent. When he looked up, he was staring straight at Gangle. Not blinking, not saying a word. Just staring. Gangle made a tiny noise and stepped behind Ragatha. 

Flatly, in a voice stripped of his usual theatricality, Jax said, “Why’d you do that.” 

Pomni glanced at the others. She knew why she’d stepped in. Truth be told, it’d been more of an issue to muster the courage than to actually figure out what she believed in. Ragatha and Zooble, though, she didn’t have a clue. And Gangle? That was a picture she hadn’t imagined. Out of everyone, she would’ve thought Gangle would be first to kick Jax to the curb. 

“Because you don’t deserve to live,” Gangle started, though she cut herself off at the way Jax’s glare turned rotten in an instant. “Wait, let me finish!” 

“Tell me something I don’t know, Ribbons.” 

“Jax, please. You don’t deserve to live.” Jax rolled his eyes, only for Gangle to keep going. “But neither do us! We never earned the right to live, because there’s no such thing! We exist because we’re supposed to, and nobody gets to take that away from us.” She sniffled, her eyes shining. “I’m sorry Caine has that power over you. It’s not fair, and I – I can’t stop him from holding that power, but I can do my best to protect you.” 

Jax blinked at her, utterly still. For a second, Pomni genuinely thought he was going to turn and walk away, never to bring this up again. But he just stepped closer and – hugged Gangle. Hugged Gangle, of all people. And even weirder, Gangle let him. Pomni had to rub her eyes to verify the genuine miracle she was witnessing. 

It was over practically before it began, though. By the time Pomni realized it, they were already separated, with Jax crossing his arms a few feet away from a softly smiling Gangle. 

“I don’t know where an exit is,” Jax said abruptly, frowning absently, “but I do know tons of places that Caine doesn’t like me going through. There’s a good chance any one of them might lead you in the right direction.” He brightened a bit. “And anyway, it’d make Caine so mad if I showed you guys the secrets to all his bells and whistles, so win-win.” 

Pomni held her hands so they wouldn’t tremble. “Do you think there’s really a way out of here?” 

“Dunno. If there is, then not a single human who ended up here ever found it, and I’ve seen a lot of idiots try. Some players dedicated their whole lives to it.” Jax met her eyes, smirking. “But then again, I’ve never cared enough to try looking too. Maybe all you need is a man on the inside to get the job done.” 

“You wouldn’t be able to follow us, though,” Zooble said with narrow eyes. “Would you?” 

“Nope.” Jax shrugged. 

“Then why would you help us if success means leaving you alone with Caine?” 

Jax just sighed, but it wasn’t in an annoyed or frustrated way that Pomni would expect from him. Instead, it was incredibly, deeply exhausted. “Because it’s either an exit or abstraction with you people. Same result in the end, so it doesn’t make much of a difference to me. Gone is gone.” 

“You really think of it like that?” Ragatha said, holding her palms over her heart like it was breaking that very moment. 

“Raggy, I am going to outlive every single one of you. None of it is a surprise by this point.” It sounded reasonable, but Pomni heard the way Jax spoke. His tone was forcibly light, and she caught the way he dragged out each syllable a little too long. It was an attempt at normalcy that came up short. “At least this way, there’s a chance that you dummies are the last morons to join the circus.” 

“But you’ll be stuck with Caine,” Pomni whispered. The full force of what they were considering hit her. They might not have a reliable exit now, but she could feel the weight of their plans in the air. This was how they’d figure out how to leave, but at the cost of one of them. If they continued down this path, they’d inevitably have to leave Jax behind. “Forever.” 

At that, Jax opened his mouth, and Pomni meant opened it. Like, let his jaw extend to reveal a mass of pointy yellow teeth that jutted out in sharp spikes, doubling in half to cackle right in her face. She watched as Jax, nearly breathless, had to brace a hand on his thigh to keep himself from tumbling over as he lost himself to laughter. 

“Ha! Pomni, you’re killin’ me. I can’t. Really, I can’t.” As the chuckles tapered off, Jax straightened back to his full height. He brushed away a tear. 

“What? What are you talking about?” 

Jax smirked. “You don’t get it?” 

Despite it all, a flash of irritation hit her. “No, Jax. I don’t.” 

The smirk grew. He leaned down, almost to her height, and reached out to tweak one of the bells on the end of her hat. She frowned and batted his hand away, to which he just hummed softly. At her sides, Ragatha and Zooble both rolled their eyes, which was comfortingly typical, all things considered. Even Gangle quieted even more than her usually borderline silent volume. 

“I won’t be trapped in here with Caine. You think I’m gonna let him get off that easily once the jig is up? You’re adorable,” Jax said slowly, grin widening with each syllable. Pomni felt herself put it together, even as he kept talking. “No, no, no, Pomni. Caine’s gonna be trapped in here with me.”

When they crawled out of the Testing Floor, they were immediately met by Kinger, who helpfully handed each of them a wicker basket full of water. The contents of the basket quickly leaked out through the gaps in the crosshatched material, leaving the floor by their feet soaked. “There you go,” he said. “I made sure to leave you all the bottom half of the lake. That’s the best half.” 

“Thank you, Kinger,” Gangle peeped out, holding her basket as far away as she could manage. There was a mackerel flopping around in it. “That’s nice of you.” 

Ragatha just sighed, though she was smiling softly. “Why’d you try to drink the lake, Kinger? You don’t even have a mouth.” 

“Oh, I heard Caine talk about finally remembering to give Jax a check-up, and I thought I’d spice things up over here so he’d come back early.” Kinger made a swipe for the top of his own basket, only to tilt his head when his hand returned empty. He lifted up the basket and turned it upside-down, clearly searching for water, only for the rest of it to spill to the ground. 

Jax stilled. Pomni turned toward him, giving him a look. At that, Jax just shrugged, and she managed to say, “How come?” 

“Mmm, he’s allergic, I think.” 

Jax laughed. He spun his own basket around his finger by the handle, before tossing it up and catching it with his other hand. “Sure am, nutjob. Allergic to death of Caine. Thanks for looking out for me.” 

“Any time, Jack.” Kinger beamed. He leaned in close to Zooble and spoke in what he clearly thought was a quiet tone, but ended up thunderingly loud. “He’s my oldest friend, you know. We met in college.” 

Zooble raised an eyebrow. “Did you now.” 

“Sure did. We were so young back then. I remember when he was still convinced he was autumn-toned. That orange did not fit him.” Kinger wiggled happily. “I really, really like the purple. First thing I did after he changed was tell him how good his glow-up was.” Then, like something just occurred to him, he turned back to Jax and shouted, full volume. “Jax! I like your purple!” 

Pomni saw as Jax’s eyes widened at that, before abruptly shrinking into those little squares again. He looked Kinger up and down, searching for something that Pomni couldn’t identify. He must have found it, though, because he squeezed his eyes shut for a long moment. When he spoke, Pomni was surprised by how unexpectedly choked-up he sounded. It was still, like, sixty percent sarcastic, as usual, but she could tell it meant something. 

“Thanks, Kinger. So do I.” 

Chapter Text

Pomni watched as Jax shuffled the deck from one gloved hand to another, sipping from her mocktail. Well, technically she’d ordered a mai tai, but the drinks in here never so much as got her buzzed, so they were kind of all mocktails. God forbid they got hammered every so often. She knew that, in a rare moment of teamwork, Jax and Zooble had begun to plot out a scheme to get Caine to bring back the stupid sauce, on the off chance for Jax to experience being high for the first time. Pomni would be lying if she pretended she wasn’t more than a little interested to see how that went. 

Bridging the cards, Jax offered to let Gangle cut the deck, only to snatch them back at the last second and pass them out. He tossed them face-up, and though he wasn’t nearly as careful as the average dealer would be, not a single one tilted the wrong way before they landed. That was something she’d never noticed about him before recently, how the laws of physics just – didn’t ever hinder him. He was like those cartoon characters who were only affected by gravity if they looked down. 

“Alright, alright, let’s get this started.” He cracked a grin as he flung a final card in front of himself. It was a queen, and Pomni saw Ragatha narrow her eyes at his suspiciously good fortune. “Zoobs, whatcha got for me?” 

“Hit,” they said with a nod toward their six. It was soon accompanied by a nine, and an eight that had them rolling their eyes. “Shut up. I don’t want to hear it.” 

To his credit, Jax didn’t say a damn word. He just kept that same satisfied smirk up as he slid a pitcher across the table, toward Zooble. It was a blend of motor oil, arsenic, and Everclear, though how the hell Jax had gotten past that copyright was beyond Pomni. When Zooble sighed but took a dutiful swig nonetheless, Jax turned toward his next victim. “Rags, how about you?” 

“Hit me – Not actually!” 

Pouting, Jax set down the sledgehammer. “Your wish is my command, Doll Face.” He gave her an eight. 

“I’m staying.” 

“With that hand? Come on, don’t you know you're supposed to assume the best about the dealer?” 

“And it’s always safe to think the worst about you,” Ragatha sniped back. She brought the straw of her Pinot to her painted lips. “I’m ending my turn. Go bother Gangle.” 

“If you insist.” Eyes sparkling in a way that Pomni immediately knew signaled bullshit, Jax turned toward Gangle, who’d nearly tangled herself to shreds over her cards. “What’s your move, Ribbons?” 

She blinked her teary eyes. “You – gave me too many cards.” 

Pomni looked down. There were, in fact, more cards in front of her than the deck should contain. Baseball trading cards and tarot cards, an off-brand Uno and save-the-dates, birthday cards and even business cards from a corporation whose logo looked more familiar than it had any reason to. Even as she tried to figure out how many there were, she swore more were sprouting from underneath each other, until Gangle’s tragedy mask just barely peeked out from underneath a mound of cardstock. 

Kinger happily slid a pair of twos into her stack. “Now you can go fish,” he said helpfully. 

“Uh.” 

Jax stared at her almost boredly, leaning against the wall from his side of the table. To the outside observer, he seemed totally aloof, but Pomni caught the almost imperceptible jittering fidget to his foot hidden beside his chair leg. He was having more fun than he’d care to admit. “Well, are you gonna go?” 

“Um, no?” 

“Suit yourself.” He reached over and pulled four cards out from her collection, seemingly at random. When he flipped them over, Pomni counted a four, a Jack, a two, and a six. Twenty-two, exactly. “But that means you bust. Drink up.” He nudged the pitcher her way. Gangle pulled a miserable expression but accepted her fate. 

With that, Jax turned toward her. “Pomni, Pomni, Pomni. What’ll it be?” 

She looked down at her own start. Six. She’d never played much blackjack out in the real world. It’d always spurned this sour feeling in her gut whenever she considered risking her money for the sake of a thrill. It wasn’t like she had much to burn, after all, and there weren’t many friends of hers interested in a low-stakes game. But this wasn’t real, and the only genuine consequence would be a mouthful she’d rather avoid. 

She smiled. “Give me a good one.” 

“Say less.” He dealt her a ten, leaning his head against his palm. “Ooh, whatcha gonna do with that?” 

“Hit me.” It was a four. That, plus her ten and six, gave her an even twenty. She waved her hand to stay. 

“Nice one. Then, as a perfectly respectable, duty-bound dealer, I am obligated to chance my fate here.” Jax pulled out a three to match his ten, and then a five on top of that. He hummed appreciatively. “Well, there you have it. Pomni beats me, I beat Ragatha, and the rest of you cheesers are supreme losers.” 

“Yeah, yeah. Like you weren’t counting cards the whole time,” Ragatha said as she pinched her triangle nose and chugged a not insignificant amount of Neverclear, as Jax had dubbed it. She stuck out her tongue, “Oh, yuck!” 

“Aw, not up to your standards? Don’t worry, I’ll pick from the top shelf next time.” Jax took the drink from Ragatha and finished it off without hesitating. Once it was drained, he slammed it back down onto the table. Pomni eyed him suspiciously. 

“You don’t have taste buds,” she said slowly, “do you?” 

Jax just beamed. “I’ve got no clue what tasting’s like.” 

At that, Ragatha huffed. She shook her head softly, glancing at Gangle and Zooble, the latter of which stared back, unimpressed. “Of course you rigged that. Why am I even surprised?” 

“Caine really didn’t bother giving you the same artificial sensation as us?” Zooble said, idly running their claw along the rim of their cup. 

Jax just waved them off, already gathering the cards again. Where they would go once he was finished, Pomni wasn’t sure. “Nah. Wasn’t necessary. There were plenty of humans who never bothered playing along with his fake food, so it didn’t stand out very much.” He kept his gaze low, Pomni noticed. He wasn’t adding much theatricality to his words either. 

“Taste is like sound,” Gangle tried, “but on your tongue. And with textures.” 

Jax wrinkled his nose. “Why would anybody want that?” 

“Uh, it’s more like it’s weird without it.” 

“There’s different flavors too, so people tend to form preferences,” Ragatha added. She stroked her chin like an old professor Pomni remembered having. “Hmm, how should I explain this? Like, for example, some food is sweet, which is like happy music, while others are spicy, with some heat to them.” 

"Rags.” 

“Yeah?” 

“All the music I’ve heard is happy,” he said dryly, motioning toward the wall speakers that blasted upbeat circus tunes, twenty-four seven. Or, at least the equivalent for a liminal space with no genuine measurements for time. “You’re pretty much saying, Imagine blue without color! That’s black! Golly Gee, I’ve solved racism!” 

Ragatha’s one eye widened. “I didn’t – Um, I’m not – That’s not my place to say, so I wouldn’t – ” 

Jax leaned back, smirking. “Called it. Ragatha’s white. Pay up.” 

Sheepishly, Pomni slid him a cool rock she’d found. He slipped it into his back pocket. 

“How the ƒμ©* do you know what racism is?” Zooble wondered with a stern look as Ragatha sputtered. “Someone would’ve had to code Caine with that knowledge if he put it in your programming.” 

“That’s actually relatively common,” Kinger said as he reached for Jax’s pocket. Jax smacked his hand away without so much as a glance. “Programmers tend to accidentally include their own opinions and stereotypes into their works because it’s so second-nature to them. Even in their data collection, they’ll sometimes use an unrepresentative population, and that affects their final project.” 

“So,” Gangle said with a puzzled brow, “the game’s creator was racist?” 

Kinger tilted his head. “What game?” 

“If the game’s creator is racist,” Ragatha said loudly, “then Jax is, like, inherently racist, right?” 

He grinned. “Joke’s on you, I’ve got no idea what a real person looks like. I literally don’t see color.” 

There was a pause. 

Then, “You’re so full of – ” 

“DID SOMEONE SAY ADVENTURE?” 

Six pairs of eyes, minus Ragatha’s button one, looked up at Caine. Caine looked back with seven pairs of eyes, because he was a one-upping asshole like that. Then he zoomed up to Jax and yanked him away, sending the table flying away with a flick of his wrist. In an instant, Jax’s eyes shrunk into beady little quadrilaterals. 

“What are you doing,” he said flatly, leaning away as far as he could with Caine keeping a clearly ironclad grip on his arm. Caine didn’t say a word to him, flittering around him and mumbling to himself. When he pushed Jax’s ears apart to peer through them, Jax growled, “Get off of me!” 

“Now, now, my sillily spurious scullion, none of that! We’ve got work to do, and let me assure you, we are not unionized. So let’s get this rock rolling before OSHA comes a-knocking!” He peeled back one of Jax’s gloves to reveal a shapeless, colorless mass that immediately gave Pomni a huge headache to look at. “Now, where was that off button…?” 

“I don’t have an off button, genius,” Jax said, shoving him away. 

Caine threw his head back and lacked hard enough to crack Gangle’s comedy mask for the upcoming day, somehow. “Ha! Yes. You do.” 

Jax gritted his teeth. “No, I don’t – ” 

Caine decked Jax across the face with a pair of brass knuckles that hadn’t been there a minute ago. The impact was strong enough to send Jax flying straight up into the air, curving to complete a perfect parabola before he hit the ground, unmoving. A trio of tiny, 2D-animated birds circled the crown of his head. 

“There it is!” 

Before Pomni could blink twice, Caine was dragging Jax away by his armpits in a way that, despite all logic, Pomni just knew was how murderers hauled dead bodies. “Wait!” she yelled, hustling to catch up with them. She heard a collection of footsteps trailing behind her. “What are you doing with him?” 

“Decoupage!” he called over his shoulder. “Or open heart surgery. I haven’t decided yet!” Spinning on his heel, he turned back toward her. “Why? Did you have a preference?” 

“Um. None of the above?” 

“But that’s boring.” Caine crossed his arms, still keeping a hold of Jax with his two free hands. Pomni did a quick count. Yeah, sure, what-fucking-ever. “Chat, I’ve had every insult in the book thrown my way – melodramatic, megalomaniac, melatonin – but never has that been boring. I have to stir the pot somehow!” 

Gangle went pale. “Did you – call us chat?” 

“No, I said cat.” Zooming forward with a permanent marker, Caine scribbled six whiskers and a pair of triangle ears onto Gangle’s mask. There was a glossy sheen to the ink as Gangle trembled. “There you go! Oink!” 

Gangle’s ribbons pressed themselves to her mask. Wordlessly, Zooble passed her a small compact mirror. She cracked it open, squinting at it for a moment before she snapped it shut. In a tiny voice, she whined, “I didn’t want to be a kemonomimi on main…” 

“Caine,” Ragatha said in that even, reasonable tone of hers, “we’ve been over this. We like this version of Jax. We don’t need or want you to change him. Let him go.” 

“You’re just saying that because you don’t know any better,” he dismissed, waving her off. “Some of his past versions were really popping, if you know what I mean. Part of my good old days, I’d say.” He moved to wipe an artificial tear away, only to still with a thoughtful expression. “Hmm. Now that I think about it, you all should be making informed decisions. After all, isn’t that what democracy is all about? Repeating elections until the people in power get their desired result?” 

“Oh,” Pomni heard herself say softly. “There’s that pre-programed prejudice.” 

“Sure is! You know, I’ve got to thank you all for this feedback. It was a great sounding board.” Dropping his voice, he whispered behind his palm, “To be honest, the old idea well has kind of been running dry for a hot minute now. So when inspiration presents itself, you’ve got to beat it with a rusty hammer and cram it behind bars. That’s why today’s adventure is…” 

The cards flew up into the air, twisting together to build blocky letters. As they shifted in the air, Pomni saw them turn different colors. Her first assumption, at seeing the pastel orange and electric pink hues, was quickly proven wrong at the introduction of a pale green, neon red, and icy blue. As soon as complete words formed, a card each shot toward each of the circus members. She looked down to see a green slip of paper in her own hands. 

“Jumbled Jax Jamboree!” Caine crowed. It was only then that Pomni realized that the man in question had disappeared since the last time she had eyes on him. She froze. Where the fuck was Jax? 

“Caine! What did you do to – ” 

She was cut off when Caine snapped three times, each of them spawning their own reactions. At the first snap, a set of handcuffs popped into existence, each with one cuff circled around each circus member’s left wrist. There was no time to comment on that before the second snap sent the colored cards up in flames. With the final snap, the other end of all the handcuffs filled in. 

By which Pomni meant, someone’s wrist slipped into each cuff. 

By which Pomni meant, five someones came into existence, their wrist slipped into each cuff. 

By which Pomni meant, five multi-colored copies of Jax came into existence, their wrist slipped into each cuff. 

Again, Pomni had to emphasize, five nearly identical copies of Jax showed up. A yawning orange one beside Kinger, an equally teary duplicate with Gangle, and so on. She faintly registered Caine speaking behind her, but the words just didn’t land as she gawked at the scene in front of her. Holy shit. She ran through what she’d read that day they’d found out about Jax’s secret, and her knees nearly gave out right then and there. 

Jax was version six. Fucking shit. 

“ – all finish the Maze of Misery in order to recover your current iteration of Jax, or to preserve your new favorite version,” Caine was saying. He gestured to an enormous labyrinth that was still sprouting out of the ground. There were five separate entrances, each leading in a different direction. “Good luck, my vicarious omnivores, and good day!” 

Caine gyrated his hips a full eighty degrees, snapped something in his groin area, and then disappeared. 

Pomni barely heard her own wracked breathing over how viciously her heart was pounding. She felt herself press a palm to her chest, trying to calm herself, but to no avail. Damnit, damnit! She’d been doing better at keeping it all under control, she just needed to her brain to catch up to her nervous system, which was doable in theory but nearly impossible when she – couldn’t – fucking – breathe! 

A set of hands settled themselves on her shoulders, squeezing firmly but not harshly. Pomni opened her eyes to see that the sage green Jax had taken a knee in front of her. He was taking heavy breaths in and out, but they were miles slower than her own, and just forceful enough that she could keep track of them over her own panicked efforts. As she tried to match his rhythm, he met her eyes. 

Calmly, evenly, he said, “You’re okay. Everything is fine. Let’s take a minute and get you back on track, okay? Take your time. Everything is fine.” 

She found herself nodding along. “Y - Yeah. Okay.” 

He took in a big breath again, adding pressure to his grip on her shoulders as he did so. He loosened his hold when he exhaled. It made it that much easier to follow his breathing, if she was being honest. Before long, she was able to shake his hands off. He stood to his full height, still looking at her. Not staring, just – looking. There was no real expression on him. It was a bit disconcerting how blank he seemed. She felt herself frown. 

“Everything is fine,” he reminded her. 

“Yeah. Uh, thanks for that. I owe you one.” 

He nodded seriously. “Of course. If it’s alright with you, I’d like to cash the debt now. Would you help me detain Version Four?” 

On cue, there was a strangled scream behind them. Pomni turned to see Gangle and the blue Jax clutching each other, sobbing in tandem as Zooble wrestled with the bright red Jax they’d been cuffed to. Pinned on their back, Zooble just barely managed to keep Jax from ripping out their throat-adjacent area with his gnashing teeth. Desperate hands scrounged around to find a martini glass that was soon smashed atop Zooble’s pointy head. 

“Oh. Oh jeez!” Pomni gasped. 

“Everything is fine,” the Jax she was cuffed to reminded her. “But we should probably stop Version Four from breaking the skin.”

“Okay, okay.” With her free hand, Ragatha compulsively smoothed out the ruffles of her dress. The ironed-crisp pleats suffered for it, but it was a worthwhile sacrifice if it kept her nerves under control. What she would do for a pair of trousers. She’d even settle for jeans if it meant being able to run without tripping over the endless fabric trapping her legs. “So we’re settled?” 

“Speedrun the maze, get the real Jax back, and beat the ish out of Caine,” Pomni repeated. She made a weird face, glancing at the copy linked to her. “Or, the current Jax. Sorry. That was rude of me.” 

“You’re fine,” he said, expressionless. 

“You’re great!” the Jax attached to Ragatha corrected him. His smile somehow stretched wider, but not in the shit-eating way that the normal Jax’s always seemed to do. This was just genuine, unparalleled excitement, which was strange, to say the least. Not to ignore the obnoxiously pink color switch, so bright that Ragatha’s eye hurt. “This is such a good plan! You’re so smart, Pomni!” 

She shifted from one foot to another. “This was Ragatha’s plan.” 

He didn’t miss a beat. “You’re so smart, Ragatha!” 

“Can we get going?” Zooble yelled. They were already panting from holding back their own Jax, who’d made no less than eight separate attempts on their life in the few minutes they’d been figuring out what to do. The best solution anyone had been able to think of was to detach the arm connected to the cuffs and link it to a set of around twenty more Zooble pieces, each stretching to their full height. It gave a good amount of distance in the hopes of staving off attempt number nine. “Some of us are on a ticking clock.” 

The red Jax attached to them lunged, only to snap back when the cuff only reached so far. “Kill yourself!” he shrieked, scrabbling forward despite the futility of it. “Kill yourself kill yourself kill yourself kill yourself kill yourself kill yourself kill yourself kill yourself kill yourself kill yourself – ” 

“Shut up,” droned the Jax beside Kinger, rubbing his eyes. “Just – shut up. Nobody wants to hear you. You’re so annoying.” 

“I’m gonna kill your face – ” 

“Please don’t,” the green Jax said mildly. 

“Please don’t,” warbled the blue Jax, cowering. 

“All of you, shut it!” Zooble snapped. With their free hand, they massaged what might have been their temples. They took in a breath. “If we start arguing, there’s no way we’ll stop. Let’s just go our separate ways before we get caught up in each other’s BS. The quicker we get this done, the quicker we can go back to ignoring Caine.” 

“And the quicker we’ll get Jax back,” Pomni added. Ragatha bit down on her lip when Zooble didn't meet her eyes. 

“Sure, whatever.” 

“Wait, hold on.” Ragatha cut in, her lungs feeling tighter than they should have. “Maybe we shouldn’t split up. Safety in numbers, and all. I mean, some duos might have trouble – uh, finalizing their portions of the plan.” 

Against her better judgement, her gaze slid over to Kinger’s and Gangle’s partnerships. The blue Jax attached to Gangle seemed to be one mild breeze from keeling over, shoulders hitching as he flinched solely at her steady gaze. Kinger’s pairing, by comparison, had completely slumped to the ground by now. In the few seconds she’d had her eyes off of him, he’d begun to snore into the tiled floor.

She watched as Kinger moved to wander away, only to stop at the cuff attached to his floating, disembodied hand. He hummed softly and laid down beside Jax, already chattering away about his favorite dust mites. 

“I’m not sure that’s an option.” Pomni nodded toward one of the five exits. Beside the threshold was a small scanner already lit up a fragile blue. The next door held a green one, then a pink one, and so on. When Ragatha frowned at that, Pomni just mustered up a weak smile. “Hey, it’s alright. If there’s a single exit, we’ll be bound to run into each other in there.” 

“And if there’s multiple?” 

“Then the maze has got to be that much more simple, right? Only so much room to wander.” 

Maybe in the real world, where corn fields were confined to the amount of acres a land owner could afford. But not here. Caine had risen civilizations on a whim time and time again. Even though they were still in the Tent, she didn’t trust that he hadn’t casually extended the bounds of their home again. 

She didn’t say any of this. She just smiled back, carefully that it wasn’t all teeth. As her mother would say, she wasn’t a wolf baring her fangs. “For sure. You’ve got to be right, Pomni.”

Eagerly, the Jax she was linked to piped up, “You’re so knowledgeable about mazes, Pomni!” 

Pomni’s smile gained a forced tinge to it. “Uh, yeah. Thanks.” She turned toward her entrance. Ragatha took a half step forward, letting her see the way Pomni dropped the smile as soon as she was facing away. “We should get going.” 

He’s not affiliated with me, Ragatha wanted to shout, except that would lead to everyone staring at her like she was crazy, and she knew that their thin tolerance of her was flimsy on its best days. Too much and not enough, that was what her parents had always said she was. It was all she could do to keep herself compressed and palatable. 

“For sure!” she said with more pep than was strictly necessary. She started to say something else, some sort of filler word nonsense that even she couldn’t track, but Pomni was already walking away. Great. Perfect. With a half-hearted laugh, she turned to the Jax beside her. “You ready to get moving, bud?” 

“For sure!” he said back, and she had to stop for a moment to wonder if he was making fun of her. His billion-watt smile didn’t so much as waver, though, so she just nodded and moved toward the entrance. 

She let the mechanism scan their joint cuff. It made a happy little sound that almost reminded her of jingle bells. When they fully stepped into the maze, though, a sheet of the cement-ivy walls slid up to block where they’d come in from. From what she was able to hear from the outside, the same was happening with the others. 

“No way out but through, huh?” she murmured, mostly to herself. 

“Absolutely!” Jax cheered. “You’re so correct!” 

She started forward, already dreading what was to come. Jax trailed behind her, tugged forward by his wrist. “You – don’t have to pander to me like that, you know. Caine’s not here, and I won’t snitch on you or anything.” 

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about?” 

Ragatha let her free hand brush against the leaves hugging the walls. It was a muted sensation, like reaching through a blanket. That’s how it always was with her, though. Nothing new, nothing notable. “You’re cheerleading me for pointless things. It’s nice of you, I guess, but it’s not necessary.” She turned to study him, looking him up and down for the first time. “Are you actually that excited? Like, on the inside? Or are you just acting that way?” 

“Um, acting, I think? It’s like…” Jax trailed off before adding, abruptly, “Do you know psychology?” 

“Do I – know psychology?” 

“Yeah! I like psychology. Like, a lot.” There was a newfound little hop to Jax’s steps as he walked. His free hand tapped out a little pattern against the side of his overalls, a rhythm Ragatha didn’t recognize. “Caine made me download a lot of textbooks when he first made me. Or, I guess he downloaded them, and I read them. He wanted me to understand humans better than he did. I never really figured out practical application, but I loved learning! Just, about everything! It’s all so neat!” 

Oh, Ragatha thought. He was the first one. Wasn’t he? 

Oh, Ragatha thought. He reminds me of a kid. A young kid. 

Oh, Ragatha thought. He reminds me of my little brother. 

She took in a breath. Then another. When that didn’t do much to settle her nerves, she turned away from Jax, toward the maze’s barrier. The way he talked, it was just like elementary school children chattering on about their day. How old was he at this moment? How much had Caine bothered to teach him before putting him to work? 

“So psychology is your favorite?” she asked. 

“Yeah! At least, that’s what I’ve learned about the most. Or at all. Caine never got me any other books.” He dimmed for a moment before brightening again. “Anyway, what I think happens with me is that I’m set to exhibit certain physical symptoms that lead my consciousness to assume I’m happy.” 

Ragatha, who had taken a single AP Psychology class her junior year by a balding man on the brink of divorce, blinked. “Oh?” she tried. “Like what?” 

“My heart beats super fast, like, all the time! And my hands are always shaking, like, I have a ton of energy that I can never get rid of. Just stuff like that. ‘Cause, like, there’s this theory that says people experience physiological reactions, rationalize them into emotional categories, and from there figure out what they’re feeling. So I think that’s why I’m constantly so excited!” 

Ragatha took a breath. “That sounds like anxiety,” she said slowly. 

“Well, yeah, I guess you could think that,” he said, grin dimming the slightest bit, “but it’s not! Because I’m, like, not about that. That’s Three’s thing.” 

She felt her painted nails dig into her palms. It was like staring into a mirror. Compressing herself into a too small, too tight, too silent package, because her little brother was right there, and he was teary-eyed and sobbing into his sweatered arms, and there was no time to comfort her own rampant nerves when he was the one with real struggles. 

“There’s not a set limit on that, you know,” she said softly. If she squinted, she could pretend the maze was set against a warm, summer sky. She wasn’t racing to the finish line the way her neighbor had suggested, because she liked to enjoy her time with her brother when she got the chance. It wouldn’t hurt to pretend for a moment or two. “Just because Three’s upset, it doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to be.” 

“But I’m not.” 

The sudden forcefulness of it surprised her. It must have surprised Jax too, because he stopped walking for a split second, just long enough for her heart to freeze in her chest. The pause was over before it started, though, and the pep in his step was back as soon as it left. The way he smiled was closer to baring his teeth than it was to a genuine grin. 

Jax was based off of an animal, Ragatha remembered. He was the only one of them. In all the times he’d teased her and Kinger for being so easily played, or Zooble for falling to pieces, she’d never quite pieced together that, on some level, Caine had explicitly made him less than human from the get-go. 

“You’re not, are you?” Ragatha felt herself frowning. Reflexively, she held up her fingers to where the worry lines would form. She stopped herself before she made contact. If there were wrinkles, she’d just iron them out like she would any other fabric. “It’s scary being manic like this all the time, but it’s scarier if you stop. Isn’t it?” 

Jax’s ears dipped just the slightest. “I’ve never been scared in my life,” he insisted. 

“You’ve been scared every moment of your life.” 

He huffed a bitter laugh. “What life?” 

For a moment, Ragatha just looked at him. Wide eyes, uncomprehending. Jax stared back, mouth pressed thin. Then realization hit her harder than she could handle, her knees knocking against her, and she swore, she swore, if they actually ate food here, she’d have upended her stomach onto the floor. 

“Jax,” she heard herself say. “What happens to you when we finish the maze?” 

He wouldn’t meet her eyes. He just wouldn’t, goddamnit. “You’re so lucky Caine didn’t obliterate your Jax from existence the second he figured things out,” he said quietly. 

“Is it like going to sleep?” she whispered, practically feeling her throat close up at just the thought. It felt rotten, asking something like that. Almost as if she was taking advantage of someone who didn’t have the same luxury of wondering. He had to deal with the reality of the situation. “Please tell me it’s like going to sleep.” 

“It’s like dying is what it’s like.” 

He wasn’t smiling anymore. 

“If I tell Caine to keep you,” Ragatha said as she wiped at her eyes, “then that’s what’ll happen to Jax. He’ll just be gone.” 

“I’m supposed to keep you happy, so I should tell you that I’m okay with that.” He kept his gaze low. “That I’m content because I did my duty until I wasn’t needed anymore, and I’m not scared about being put away again. That’s my job, after all. If I made you feel guilty over your choices, it’d only upset you.” 

There was an end to it he wasn’t including. “But?” 

He froze, so utterly still that she didn't even know if his heart was till beating. “But I’m really bad at my job.” 

And then she was diving forward, pulling him close and wrapping her arms around him. She gave really good hugs, she knew. She’d cup one hand under the back of the other person’s head, squeeze their shoulder with the other. To tell the truth, she was used to craning down a bit during one of these. It took her a moment to realize that she’d instinctively balanced on her tiptoes to compensate for Jax’s height. 

He wasn’t crying. That was something she noticed even as his breath audibly caught. There wasn’t a single tear to him, even as he cracked underneath the pressure of his own existence. Did he not know that he was allowed to, or was he built to genuinely be unable to do something as human as crying? 

But she held him close like she was. She rubbed her back like he was breaking down to pieces, the way she used to do for annoying little pests when they had bad dreams and had to be herded back to their racecar beds. Without even thinking about it, she murmured, under her breath, “It’s okay, you’re okay. Let it all out. I know, I know.” 

Then, when he seemed just about finished, she rose her chin and promised, “You’re not getting filed away again. I won’t let Caine do it.” 

She’d failed a lot in her life. Her first driving test, the SATs, that interview for the firm that would’ve gotten her out of her house five years early. Even when she’d slipped that headset on in spite of her better judgement. But right now, against all hope, she refused to fail again. She’d lost too much to face this would-be defeat without digging her heels into the ground and refusing to go down without a fight. 

Maybe it was sort of fucked of her, that she was willing to risk the real Jax for the sake of this one, but Ragatha had never been the person to put help behind a paywall. If someone needed her, then that was that. She'd rise to the occasion or sink under the pressure, but goddamnit, it would be a legitimate effort on her part.

There had to be some sort of scenario where they all won. Where neither Jax was hurt, and Ragatha could prove that happy-go-lucky annoyances weren't all that bad if you got to know them. She had a Master's degree. Saving someone's existence couldn't be that hard.

Jax squeezed his eyes shut for a heartbeat. “It would be really nice if I was wrong about you too,” he said softly. 

“I’m going to do right by you. I’m going to save you,” she swore. Despite herself, she glanced over her shoulder, toward the sprawling expanse of vines and hedges. “Somehow…”

Kinger hummed a little melody underneath his breath as he knelt down to gently cup one of the slugs that’d found its way onto the maze’s flora. If he was remembering correctly, which he probably wasn’t, then it’d actually been a kind little fellow named Melody who’d taught him that one. 

She’d been a songbird, or maybe a buzzing bee, and perhaps her name had been Cadence, actually, now that he was thinking about it. It didn’t much matter. What he did remember, clear as day, was the pitch of her whistle whenever he’d get lost in his sock drawer. It always drew him back out. 

He missed her, he thought sharply as he straightened, his eyes suddenly burning. He missed the fact that he couldn’t really remember where they’d set her irrelevant and irrational tombstone, a tradition that’d ended alongside the jumpy kid with the big eyes. 

“Do you remember what their name was?” he asked. It was a bit sudden, a bit unprompted, to be completely fair. He couldn’t fault Jax for refusing to raise his head up from where he’d faceplanted on the ground, starfished on his stomach like he’d been there for hours already. 

“Whose?” he grumbled. 

Kinger blinked. “Huh?” 

“What?” 

“Pardon?” 

Jax groaned. “We’re so cooked.” 

Kinger made a thoughtful little noise at that. He wasn’t entirely sure why, in all honesty, but that usually meant he had something important to say, even if he didn’t yet know what. So, in what he was pretty sure was his typical move, he sat on the ground beside Jax and cupped his hands over his eyes, singing quietly to himself until the last of the lights dimmed. 

“I think Caine lied to you,” he said casually. If he pressed down a bit, he could see little bursts of color, like fire flies. When he was little, he used to run away from them, scared that they’d sting like matches. He sort of wished he’d tried to catch one when he’d had the chance. Nowadays, none of them wanted to be his friend. 

“Mmm, yeah?” There was a yawn-like sound, so Jax had probably gotten up and begun to skip around in circles. Logically. “‘Bout what?” 

“I think you’re less of an NPC and instead closer to an adaptive AI.” 

The small bit of motion Kinger had been able to pick up on vanished entirely. “What.” Then, after a beat, he added, “I’m glaring at you, by the way. Thought you should know that.” 

“Thanks!” Kinger had to replay the conversation a bit to track where they’d brought it, but once he was up to speed, he continued without too much difficulty. “That thing you said, cooked? No one’s used that word in that context before. Not even Pomni, and she’s the freshest out of all of us by a long shot. Smells it too!” 

“‘m gonna fall asleep again if you don’t get to the point. Not a threat, jus’ the truth.” 

“What I’m saying is that you’ve likely picked up that slang from current media use. Bits of information that the game is siphoning in updates – and there has to be updates, or else the program would’ve shut down by now. That means that, in a way, you have a link to the outside world.” Kinger shrugged. “You might even be able to make that connection run both ways.” 

His friend was quiet for a moment. He’d been like that a lot, over the years. The only time he ever really spoke up was when Queenie dragged him out of his shell, bright-eyed all the way. Part of Kinger suspected he was trying to keep Caine’s thousands of omnipotent eyes from catching notice of him by fading into the background. 

When he finally spoke up, his voice was level, but low. “I’m not your Jax. Don’t expect me to help you abandon me.” 

Kinger sat back until he was laying down, beside Jax, he was pretty sure. He couldn’t really say what sort of memory it pulled at, but as he laid there, he could feel soft gingham underneath his palms, the sound of a wicker basket opening not too far away. Before he slipped too deep in, though, he let his fingers relax a bit until the darkness wasn’t really that dark any more. It made things fuzzier, but he wasn’t at risk of remembering too good. 

“I'm sorry. I could never figure out how to help you,” he admitted. “Something was up with you, that much I could tell, but I was too wrapped up in my own junk to parse through it. And, you know, I never let myself live that down. That’s the thing they don’t tell you about losing your mind – you get stuck remembering all the bad you did. You forget all the good things that must’ve happened.” 

“I just want to go to sleep and wake up feeling like a normal person.” 

Kinger’s breath caught. “Jax – ” 

“He built me wrong. On purpose. Every day, I wake up, and it’s like my eyes are already heavy. All I think about is the next time I’m allowed to sleep. I can’t enjoy my life because I’m not really there. I can’t even think about the things I like through all the brain fog.” Jax sighed. It wasn’t tired, but it was exhausted. “I can’t live like this. You want to know how you can help me?” 

“I do.” 

“When he puts me down this time, make sure he doesn’t bring me back.” 

Kinger sat up, hands at his sides. The overhanging light made his eyes sting. Already, he could feel his mind slowing, rusted gears halting yet again, but he looked over at Jax anyway. He’d curled in on himself, laying on his side with his arms around his stomach. Like a discarded toy. It made his heart hurt. 

“You’re not happy like this.” It wasn’t a question.

Jax glared up at him with what was clearly all the hate he could muster, before it faded with a dull sheen to his gaze. He shrugged. He only made it halfway through the motion. “He made me as punishment for something I didn’t do. I’m designed to be miserable, and if nothing else, I’m really good at doing what I’m told.” 

Kinger thought about the days where he could barely parse through the stimuli beyond his own two detached hands. The moments where there was laughter in his ears that he couldn’t place, that he’d shake out on instinct only to freeze at the sudden absence of all noise. When he swore he could feel bits of himself flaking off with every breath. 

But on those days, he’d shovel fake food into his mouth for no other reason than the vague sensation of his fingers around a wooden spoon. He’d wait for the Moon to blink her big eyes up at the sky, trying to count all the stars he could before they twinkled out of existence. If he was really fuzzy, he’d wander down the halls, squinting up at the closed-off bedrooms and trying to feel something. 

He stayed around for moments like these. Where kids who weren’t kids, not really, but more so kids to someone as old as him, would grit their teeth and blink back tears they didn’t think they could shed. Because if this ragtag group of misfits deserved anything, it was kindness that might not be there if Kinger gave up on himself. 

There were more people than he could remember who’d lost themselves to the monotony and minutia of the circus. He didn’t blame them for that, not even a little bit. A blank slate, Abstraction, they really were just two different terms for the same idea: escape. Surviving any way you could, even if it means killing off parts of yourself with the infected knife. 

Kinger looked at Jax. He saw ones and zeroes, functions and if-statements and for-loops that all spoke to inputs and outputs. Hex-code-colored pixels that correlated to an XY plane. Just a walking, talking set of code that he could copy-paste with the quickest click of his mouse. 

But he also saw the kid that stuck out a leg to passersby more out of habit than a genuine desire to trip them. That time that he’d snatched the needle out of the haystack Ragatha was rummaging through. All the satisfied grins he’d cracked at a job well done, or a victim well traumatized. No one had ever told him to do that. He’d just – made the choice for himself. 

“I really hope I don’t see you again,” he said softly. 

Jax huffed out a dry laugh. He rubbed his eyes the way little boys and girls and Zoobles did on Christmas Eve, as they kept insisting that they weren’t tired, not really, not even that much. It made Kinger feel like he deserved the gray in his hair just watching it. “Me too, bud. Me too.” 

“I’ll help you out. I’ll get Caine to set you free,” he promised. Kinger looked up to the ceiling, where the fluorescent light bulbs shone so brightly that he swore he could feel his retinas burning to a crisp in an instant. “Somehow…”

Gangle felt her satin knees knock against each other quietly. Her fingers were drumming little plink-plink-plink sounds into the ceramic of her mask. The ribbon that served as her spine was curved into an awfully steep arc that only worsened as she curled in further to herself, hunching her shoulders worse and worse together. 

Linked by the wrist, Jax cowered from her almost as bad as she cowered from him. 

It felt like she had her arm in a bear trap, except the spikes were both already digging into the meat of her flesh and poised to snap around her limbs, all at the same time. Any second now, he was gonna yank her toward him, probably noogie her or shove her down the garbage disposal or go at her with a pair of scissors like he’d promised he would – 

“Please don’t hurt me!” Jax blurted, scuffling his feet as he tried to shrink away from her. 

Gangle froze. 

A lot of thoughts hit her at once. That was something that’d always happened for her. She was good at keeping her mouth shut, letting all those inside ideas ruminate instead of letting her tongue slip. Only problem was that she was never all that good at actually speaking her mind once she collected herself. The words just got stuck in her throat and died a quick death behind her molars. 

So, for one, she noticed how Jax had beat-for-beat matched her body language. Curled up, shoulders dipped inwards, knees to his chest like he’d deliberately compressed himself into the tightest possible shape. Like, if he tried really, really hard, then his lack of matter would make up for how much space he took. 

He’s scared of me like how I’m scared of him, she thought. Then, right after, I could get him before he gets me. 

She stilled. 

With a forced laugh, she picked herself up from the floor, picking a direction at random and charging straight for it. She could hear Jax tripping over his own feet, muttering frantic apologies as he was dragged behind her. Gangle felt her own face heat up, a frenzied pace to the non-heart beating in her non-chest. 

This was the exact line of thinking that’d messed up everything at Spudsy’s. She couldn’t handle her own baggage, and so she’d fought for control at the expense of the others, and that hadn’t even been worth it, and they’d only barely forgiven her after last time, and she knew for a fact that if she pulled this shit again then they’d kick her to the curb, and – and – and – 

And she really wished Caine’s fake pharmacy stocked Zoloft.

“Ragatha was right to be worried about us,” she burbled, already teary-eyed without even noticing. “We’re useless.” 

“Worse than useless,” Jax agreed. 

“We can’t even take care of ourselves…” 

“The others have to watch after us…” 

“Making sure we don’t get ourselves hurt…” 

“Or ruin things for them, either.” 

Gangle looked up at him. For the first time in a long time, she didn’t consider her words before she spoke. “Why would Caine make you like this?” 

She didn’t think he’d answer, to tell the truth. After all, what could someone possibly say to a question like that? For a moment, he just pressed his lips together until they evened out to a thin little line, looking down at his feet. Their cuffed hands were so close together that if Gangle wanted, she could reach out and hold his hand. She didn’t dare. 

It wasn’t that she was scared of Jax in the sense that he’d hurt her. Pain was temporary in a world like this. Even in the moment, it felt discordant, with a slight delay to it that made it feel not quite real. Besides, Jax was only ever violent if he thought that his comedy needed an element of physical humor to really land. 

Because Jax was smart. Like, really smart. He picked up little nuggets of information, tugged them underneath his sleeves and wielded them like daggers. Gangle never understood how he caught just where to slip the blade in so that it really stung. Between the fourth and fifth rib, it felt like. 

No, what she feared was that he’d looked deep into her eyes, into her soul, and say something so incredibly accurate that she’d never again be able to see him without feeling like complete and utter shit. 

“He wanted me to make the humans feel good about themselves,” Jax said quietly. It came out like an admission of guilt, shameful and ashamed. Gangle looked up at him, startled. 

“What does that mean?” Jax, make someone feel better than they’d been? It was like expecting a rainstorm to leave you dryer than you’d started. 

Jax dipped his fingertips underneath his glove, scratching nervously. Gangle couldn’t help but stare. She’d thought those were fused to his skin. Insane character design moment. “The version before me, he was too good. Or, not good enough at his job, I guess, but good enough at all the other stuff. Just really – the kind of guy you want in your court.” Jax shrugged. “I’m not.” 

Running through the other copies that’d Gangle had seen helped straighten things out. He couldn’t be referring to the sleepy Jax that’d been with Kinger, or Zooble’s insanely aggressive pair. Sheesh, was Gangle glad that she hadn’t gotten stuck with that one. That left the smiley one or the quietly reserved version. If Gangle remembered correctly, it’d been the latter who’d come right after this Jax. 

“He was really talented at making the humans feel safe,” Jax continued. “But being safe for too long sort of makes you take it for granted. A lot of humans Abstracted because there were no challenges for them anymore. So Caine made me.” 

“And you’re…?” 

“All problems. Just a metric ton of issues and troubles that mess things up for the humans. Like Jar Jar Binks except Caine wasn’t merciful enough to make me so idiotic I don’t know any better. Because I do know better.” Jax wiped at his eyes with his free hand. “I know that half the things that make me scared are silly, and the other half are stupid.” 

“But you can’t do anything about it…” Gangle started, only for Jax to fill in the rest. 

“Because the fear takes over.” 

“Yeah.” 

At that, Gangle fell silent. What was she supposed to say to that? It wasn’t like she had any worldly wisdom to impart on him. Her entire time in the circus, she’d fallen for that same weakness that’d haunted her even before donning the headset. Ever since she could remember, she let her anxieties get the best of her, and it stopped her from living the life she wanted to live. 

“I really look up to you, you know,” Jax said, a bit suddenly. 

Gangle had to pick up her jaw before it smacked against the ground. “What?” 

“I mean, every day, you get your comedy mask shattered. It’s like clockwork. There hasn’t ever been an adventure where it survived, right?” Before she could respond, he was picking up right where he left off. “But you still put it on every morning. You choose to try to be happy. That’s really cool of you.” 

Despite herself, Gangle felt herself straighten a bit. Then she deflated pretty much as soon as she reached her full height. “It’s not like I’m being brave,” she muttered. “I just never considered otherwise. It’s more like I’m just lazy, or clueless.” 

“You never considered giving up. That’s even cooler.” 

She blushed. Come to think of it, yeah. He wasn’t all that incorrect. Every morning, when Caine hauled them all out of bed, kicking and screaming, she’d open her prop chest and a new comedy mask would be sitting there. It was always so pristine, so glossy in her desk’s lighting. It felt right to slide it over her own terrible expression, knowing that it’d be there for a few hours, at best. 

“We should both try to get better at not giving up,” she said with a weak grin. For the first time in a while, it didn’t feel like plastic on her face. 

“I can’t.” 

“Why not?” 

Jax squeezed his eyes shut, just for a beat. “I don’t think I’m capable of being happy.” 

“You are.” She couldn’t explain the sudden fierceness behind herself, only that it grew as she turned toward him, fists clenched at her sides. “You are. Even if there are days where it doesn’t feel like there’s any other way to be than the way you are right now, it’s still worth it to try finding things you care about!” 

Jax just pulled a miserable expression. “But I don’t think Caine built me to be like that.” He looked down at his own palms, his gaze running further down his arms. “I’m blue in every sense of the word.” 

That made Gangle’s heart ache like it was about to shrivel up, right on the spot. To tell the truth, she thought the same, sometimes. There’d be moments where she was positively sure that whoever made her had designed her with the specific, explicit intent on ensuring she’d only ever live her life in misery. It felt like the only explanation as to how she could be surrounded by things that should have made her happy, only to feel nothing but icy anxiety in its place. 

But at least she had the luxury of never knowing if that was true or not. She didn’t have to look her creator in the eyes as it refused to admit it’d done her wrong. She couldn’t imagine what it’d be like to have solid, undeniable confirmation that her entire existence was botched on purpose. 

Fuck, she was so selfish. 

She didn’t always used to be this way. She swore that there used to be excited butterflies in her stomach instead of big, floppy bugs that made her gut ache. But it was one thing to be the gawky preteen and another to live as the bumbling adult, and every time she gave into the fucking mortifying ordeal of being known, it felt like she liked herself less and less. 

Gangle gritted her teeth. She didn’t have to be this way. She didn’t have to hate herself over things out of control. Easier said than done, obviously, but – but maybe it was enough to try a little bit every day. If not for herself, than for those who weren’t as lucky to begin every morning with a new chance from yesterday. 

Because yeah, it was unbelievably shitty for someone to have to deal with their creator watching them at every turn, but it also meant that they had a chance to talk to them, something that someone like Gangle would never be able to take advantage of. 

“I’m going to talk to Caine,” Gangle said, a little weaker than she’d meant. Hiking her shoulders, she repeated, stronger, “I’m going to talk to Caine. It’s not fair to be forced to live through all the bad parts of life without getting to appreciate the good ones too. We don’t need a man-made martyr.” 

Jax shivered in the absence of any breeze. “I – I don’t want him to change me.” 

“He won’t. But he’ll let you be capable of changing yourself.” Gangle didn’t like herself all the much. That was okay. Because when Kinger said she reminded him of that constellation up in the sky, or when Pomni asked about her OCs, or when Zooble just – just Zooble, Gangle felt like maybe, she could one day. She had the potential to grow. “If he’s going to make you live, he has to let you live. So I’m going to talk to him about it. Um, if that’s okay.” 

Jax just blinked at her. For a minute, Gangle’s ribboned intestines twisted, and she worried that she’d overstepped. But then Jax was wiping away tears in his eyes, like he’d been this whole time, except now, he was smiling. Small and fragile, but it was there nonetheless. He nodded, and the tension dissipated. 

“I’ll stick up for you. I’ll help you be the person you want to be,” she vowed, and as she looked forward, toward the sprawling maze ahead, she couldn’t help but feel like this would be a really good scene to immortalize on a Hot Topic t-shirt. “Somehow…”

“ – stupid ƒμ©*!^⅁ triangle-headed $#!+, I’m gonna rip off all your &@ɱ^ arms and shove them right up your @$$! Go KILL YOURSELF before you ƒμ©*!^⅁ ?!$$ me off – ” 

Eyes flashing, Zooble whirled around. They stepped right up into Jax’s space, jabbing a rubber finger right into his chest. He gnashed his teeth at them, but they didn’t so much as blink. “I’ve been navigating early Internet message boards since I was fourteen,” they said. “I’ve moderated more Discord servers than people you know. I know every unfunny inside joke Tumblr has to offer. So this rage-baiting schtick you’re trying to pull? It’s not gonna do a thing. Stop wasting your breath.” 

To his credit, that did seem to cool Jax down. For the first time since this whole shitshow had started, he closed his damn mouth. The glare didn’t ease up, but instead of shrieking like a banshee, he slowly, evenly picked out his words, before delivering them in an icy, “Gangle’s never going to like you the way you like her.” 

Great. Fucking great. Zooble just rolled their eyes, turning to keep walking with Jax in tow. They tried to tune out his bullshit, but they were only about fifty percent successful. Whatever. No skin off their back. 

“She can barely love herself, let alone someone as useless as you.” 

“Is that so?” 

“Yep. Because sooner or later, everyone’s gonna realize that you aren’t the cool, mysterious loner with a checkered past and a heart of gold. You’re a nobody. Too boring to be interesting so you make up for it by distancing yourself before they can abandon you. But the truth is, Zoobs, that no one cares enough about you to overlook what a waste of space you are.” 

Zooble lifted an eyebrow. “Speaking from experience?” 

“Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!” 

They just snorted, hauling Jax down the leftmost path without a second glance. “You’re so hot-headed,” they murmured with a shake of their head. “I swear, Jax never lets half these things get to him.” 

In response, Jax rushed forward, shouldering them hard enough that Zooble had to brace themselves so they wouldn’t smash into the wall. “That’s kind of the whole ƒμ©*!^⅁ point, idiot.” 

“What?” 

He angrily pointed at his own skull. “My $#!++¥ programming’s got me cranked up to the max, twenty four-seven. My whole brain’s buzzing over every little thing. So yeah, I’m kind of hot-headed. Not like there’s much else going on up there.” 

“Don’t blame the things you’ve done on someone else,” Zooble said with a scoff. “You’re in control of what you do with the life you’ve been given. Nobody forced you to decimate an entire circus.” When Jax just glared harder at them, they matched his withering gaze with one of their own. “Yeah. Don’t think I forgot about that.” 

“You make it seem like I brought the knife down with a grin.” 

“Did you?” 

“Well, sort of.” He shrugged, far too casual for someone recounting the blood on his hands. “That was mostly the adrenaline, though. Hard not to be a little pleased when you’ve got fire in your veins for the first time in your life.” 

“Most people are capable of exhibiting basic self-control over themselves, believe it or not.” 

“Most people develop that skill over a lifetime, dingus. Think about it. If a toddler goes on a rampage, it ends in a tantrum and a tired parent. But an otherwise fully-grown adult? It’s got a world of power in its hands with no better reason not to use it.” 

“But you’re not a child.” He may have been a scarce few hours old when he’d lost it for the first time, but that didn’t mean shit in Zooble’s book. If no one had taught him mercy, then no one had taught him violence either, yet he’d put that one together for himself anyway. “You hurt so many people, and you’re not sorry about it. So until you feel bad for what you’ve done, I’m not feeling bad for you.” 

Jax grabbed for their arm again. Zooble shoved him away before he could get a good grip. Without looking away from him, they mapped out the possible exits they could make a move for if things got dicey. Despite it all, they couldn’t help but be grateful that they’d been paired with this Jax. Fuck knew what Kinger would’ve done in a setup like this. 

When they met Jax’s eyes, though, they flinched. It wasn’t incandescent anger that was alight in him, but a frustration Zooble could only describe as desperate. He had both hands balled up into fists, shoulders hiked high as he worked his jaw. When he spoke, his words had such a plucked quality to them that it was evident how precisely he was picking them out. 

“I can’t. That’s the entire point I’m trying to make. I genuinely don’t care about anyone or anything other than myself, and I know that’s a problem, but for the life of me, I can’t fix it.” 

“Get therapy! Fix your $#!+ instead of blaming it on someone else!” 

“I’m trying!” he screamed, and when Zooble blinked, he was in front of them, fingers digging divots into their shoulders. He got so up close in their space that they slammed the back of their skull against the wall in an attempt to escape. Only when they panicked and raked their nails across his face did he loosen his grip. He shifted from one foot to another, seeming to be about to back off. Zooble shoved him away, right square in the chest. 

“Don’t touch me! Jeez, you can’t get in my face every time I disagree with you.” More shaken than they wanted to admit, Zooble moved to brush nonexistent dirt off of their clothes. 

When they looked up, Jax had his head in his hands, bowed over with enough pressure that it looked like he was trying to staunch a wound. “I want to kill you,” he breathed, just loud enough for Zooble to pick up. They stilled. “I can’t think straight over how much I want to kill you.” 

“If you take another step toward me, I’m screaming loud enough that Caine’ll wipe your file in a heartbeat.” Gangle, Kinger, Pomni. They couldn’t let him near the others if he was just planning on ripping them to shreds. Ragatha too, they guessed. 

“I don’t want to kill you! I just – I can’t not, I – ” Jax froze. He let his hands fall to his side, staring up at Zooble with a strange expression. An odd mix of curiosity and realization. “Wait. Wait, you can help me. You can fix me.” 

His fur is such an angry red, Zooble couldn’t help but think. It looks like it hurts. 

“What the $#!+ are you talking about?” 

Jax was already nodding along. His expression seemed to fixate more and more on them as time went on. It made Zooble’s skin crawl. There was rarely a benefit to being the sole bearer of Jax’s attention. “Caine likes you. Better yet, he really, really wants you to like him and his adventures. If you tell him you want to tweak my programming, change things here and there, he’ll let you. You can fix me!” 

“How?” 

Jax swallowed, queasy-looking. “Caine meant to make me passionate. That was supposed to be my purpose. Reignite the humans’ love in living life, that’s what he said. Except he didn’t finish the job just right, and now I’m like this. I care so much about everything, but I don’t have anywhere to put all that care, so it festers into hate until I do something awful. He just needs to patch up the jagged parts of me.” 

“Jax – ” 

“I’ll choose to be a good person,” he insisted. “I swear I will. I just want to be able to make the choice. Please, Zooble.” 

Here was the thing. Zooble, intrinsically, automatically, did not believe that there was such a thing as good or bad people. There were people who prioritized delivering a bright smile above genuine connections, and people who left rooms uncaring of the havoc they’d wreaked on it. But these were just humans who didn’t neatly fit into a system of binary rules that someone else had set out. 

They didn’t feel bad for Jax. Not one bit. For all his promises that he’d do the right thing when the time came, Zooble knew it wouldn’t be that simple. It was one thing to draw up a list of resolutions and another to actually double down on finishing them. Being a better person was a continuous, perpetual task. 

But, if nothing else, Zooble understood the desire for choice. Wishing for a semblance of control even when it really didn’t matter, when it was only the difference between the rock and the hard place. In a place like this, where so much bullshit was decided for them, they couldn’t fault someone for striving to pick their poison despite the futility of it. 

“I’m not doing this for you.” 

Jax lit up. “Yes, yes!” He bounced on the balls of his feet, wildly punching a fist into the air as he cheered. When a thorn from the maze’s vines snagged his pant leg, he growled and dug his hands into the foliage, ripping out a leafy mass of branches. Jax hurled it over his shoulder without hesitating. “ƒμ©* yeah, I’m not gonna make you regret it!” 

“You already are,” Zooble sighed. They rubbed their temples. “This isn’t for you, okay? I need you to understand that. This is so you don’t go on another spree. The others don’t deserve to suffer because you’re built wrong.” 

“Couldn’t agree more. Literally could not agree more.” Jax pumped his fist again, teeth bared in what might be generously described as a smile. 

Zooble didn’t return the expression. Because the thing was, they weren’t all that sure that there was anything Caine could really change. This Jax maintained that he genuinely wasn’t capable of exhibiting any emotion other than anger, but that couldn’t be the case. Zooble was watching, in real time, as he celebrated. He was excited. 

Their theory was that Jax more so assumed that his rage was the only path forward. It was an easy role to fall into if he felt like there was no other option. Even if Caine were to ‘fix’ him, he’d still revert back to his old ways. Maybe even worse upon realizing that his problems hadn’t instantly mended themselves. 

So Zooble had lied a bit. Or a lot. Who were they kidding? Sure, they’d ask Caine to boost this Jax’s affection, or whatever it was that he claimed to be deficient in, but in the exact same breath, they were absolutely demanding that his bloodlust be lowered. It wasn’t safe to have someone with his history around a group as fucking unstable as theirs. Even if it was only for a short span of time, Zooble wasn’t letting a loaded gun casually sit on the kitchen table. 

Jax – the Jax that Zooble had known, with the shit-eating grin – had begged them not to change him. So maybe that meant Zooble was more of an asshole than they’d already chalked themself up to be. Or maybe Jax really did have the naïveté of a child, because he’d thought that it’d only ever be as simple tomorrow as it was today. 

“I’ll get Caine to change you,” they assured him, careful not to slip into gray areas with fix or repair. Quietly, Zooble looked forward to the twisting paths ahead of them. So many choices, so little time to make them. “Somehow…”

Pomni and Jax made it to the end of the maze in near complete silence. 

It wasn’t for her lack of trying. She’d attempted to start up a conversation over half a dozen times, only to be shot down by Jax’s one-word responses each time. It wasn’t out of animosity, from what she could tell. He wasn’t deliberately avoiding her. This was just – how he was like. Some people didn’t click, and maybe that was the case with the two of them. 

She’d had her fair share of friendship misses. It was fine, really. What irked her, though, was the fact that she could faintly make out the sound of voices trailing through the maze. The even tones of a healthy debate, frantic shouts quickly followed by succinct apologies. It was progress, surprisingly enough. From Kinger, from Gangle, from Ragatha and Zooble, of all people. 

It made Pomni’s insides feel all twisty, like all the digital food she’d ever digitally digested was rotting in her stomach in one giant wave of slime. Was it her own fault that she and this Jax weren’t connecting? And, at that, did it even matter? It wasn’t like there was any way out of this except for returning their version of Jax, wiping out all the others in the process. 

Every step toward the exit was one toward the guillotine, Pomni realized. Jax had made that trek without comment. 

“Are you scared of what comes next?” she asked. Part of her wondered if any of the others had brought up the same question. 

He looked down at her, hands at his sides like a mint condition toy, still in the box and everything. Pomni had never been much of a collector. It’d always felt weird to stack plastic on her shelf and expect a sense of accomplishment for it. “No.” 

“Worried, then? Or sad?” 

“No. And no.” 

“Are you excited?” 

At that, he wrinkled his nose before delivering the expected, “No.” 

Pomni sighed. “How about you just tell me, instead of humoring my 20 Questions.” 

Jax didn’t look away from where he was currently staring, straight ahead and unfixated. As Pomni watched him, his expression barely shifted from its blank, default state. “I’m not feeling much of anything. That’s not really my specialty.” 

That – didn’t track with what Pomni had been thinking. She ran through the little mental notepad she’d been jotting away on. “Each one of you specializes in a certain emotion meant to evoke a response from the humans you’re trying to keep sane. Fear, excitement, anger, laziness. You’re, like, determination or something along those lines. Shouldn’t you be all – steadfast in your goals?” 

He turned toward her, eyebrows dipped so minutely that if Pomni hadn’t been searched for a change, she probably wouldn’t have picked up on it. “I am the goal.” 

“Uh.” She blinked. “Okay.” 

After a moment, Jax’s gaze drifted away again, toward the doorway where their friends would exit from the maze. “What sort of console did you play video games on?” he asked casually. 

Pomni frowned. That wasn’t exactly where she’d expected him to take the conversation. “Switch. I had a gaming PC a while back but when it crashed I didn’t bother fixing it up again. I only ever really used it for the Sims anyway.” 

He nodded absently. He did everything absently, really. There was this far-off glaze over his eyes that made Pomni doubt he was completely present for anything his body did. She wondered if Caine had purposefully designed that trait or if something had happened to teach him the habit. “Imagine there’s a game you really like and you’re really good at. You practice for hours every day. When you win, you feel a sense of pride that’s never otherwise available to you. Every aspect of your existence is devoted to the game.” 

“That doesn’t sound very healthy,” she murmured. 

Jax continued as if he hadn’t heard her. Maybe he actually hadn’t. “Then they take the game off of the Switch. PC too. All that’s left is – I dunno. PlayStation. The only way to possibly access the game you’ve devoted your life to is foreign to you. The buttons don’t react the way they used to. The controls are more finicky than you expected. By the time you adjust to fit the new world of this game, you realize something: They’ve changed the rules why you were away.” 

Reaching out, Pomni took Jax’s hand. He didn’t resist when she pulled it closer toward herself, but he didn’t react in any real way, so it wasn’t exactly a positive indicator. “It’s just a game. You can have a life outside of it.” 

He shook his head. “It’s not. It’s everything. The trouble isn’t that you don’t know who you are outside of it, but that it’s obvious you’re not anything.” Jax set a palm against his own heart. It didn’t so much as twitch. Pomni did the same with hers, a steady beat rumbling her fingers. “The only thing that’s ever brought you joy, and it’s never going to be that way again.” 

Pomni stepped away. It clicked, as best as it was ever going to. She thought about Gangle, just doing her best to get through the day. How Kinger never really knew where he was at any given point. The way Ragatha would throw anything in front of her to the wayside if it meant prioritizing one of them. Zooble’s clash with Caine every step of the way. Even herself and the disregard she’d given aspects of her new life. 

“The humans now don’t care about adventures the way yours did.” 

He nodded. “I’m supposed to fix problems, but Caine only ever taught me how to gain XP or finish scavenger hunts. You guys have issues, sure, but it’s more, you know.” He tapped his head with his pointer finger. “Up here. I don’t know how to tackle threats if they aren’t physical, and none of you are invested enough in your missions to need a bodyguard. So that leaves me here.” Jax shrugged again. “At this point, it doesn’t really matter if I live or die, change or grow. There’s nothing for me anyway.” 

That – What the hell was Pomni supposed to say to that? As much as she tried to lend a hand an an open ear to the others, she wasn’t actually trained to coach people through their – like, psychological problems. Her degree was in business, with a minor in film that she’d sort of stumbled into. 

“I don’t know what I can do to help you,” she admitted. She felt her fingers tap-tap against each other, a nervous fidget she’d developed during her first part-time job. “But I want to try. You deserve to have someone stand up for you. Not because they feel guilty or obligated, but because they genuinely want the best for you.” 

Jax slid down against the wall, sitting with his knees to his chest. The distant look to his eye only worsened. Pomni wasn’t totally sure how much he was really processing what occurred around him. “I don’t think there is a way to help me. I mean, it’s lose-lose any way you go about it. Either you keep me around at the expense of your Jax, or you let Caine erase me again. At least the second option can be framed as a mercy-kill, though. If your conscience is bothering you.” 

Pomni took a seat beside him. Weirdly enough, sitting like this reminded of her high school days. She used to wait behind the library once band practice was over, checking her watch until her friends finished their own tasks. Sometimes, if they were able to scrape together the pocket change, they’d pile into one of their shitty, hand-me-down rust buckets, and terrorize some poor McDonald's employee for as many McFlurries as they could afford. 

Despite herself, she felt a small grin build itself up. It was a nice memory. Even if she couldn’t remember what name was printed onto her driver’s license. 

“I have an idea,” she said quietly, squeaking her shoes against the linoleum floor, “but I’m not really sure how viable it is. I mean, I’d have to ask Caine and get Jax’s say-so, and the odds that both of them go for it — aren't great.” 

Jax turned toward her. He narrowed his eyes, tilting his head just so. A bit stilted, he pushed out, “I – haven’t done anything to deserve your affection. Or your sympathy, really. Why are you so insistent on helping me?” 

The first thought that hit her was of Gummigoo. The newfound hope she’d felt over finding someone who she could actually picture developing a genuine, unforced friendship with. How the devastation had hit her full-force when Caine had just snapped his fingers and – and fucking obliterated him. It’d been like he’d never even existed.

But that wasn’t why. 

“You’re sentient,” she said, “and even if you weren’t, you still deserve kindness. You’re a person, even if you don’t have a body like the rest of us.” Pomni shrugged. “Basic human decency, and all that. We all owe that to each other, I think."

When Jax just kept staring at her, the pieces clearly not clicking, she sighed and kept going. "When I was younger, I — lost someone. Things got tough for a really long time. It was hard to function like I didn't have this inescapable grief suffocating me." Had Jax ever felt grief? For someone other than his own sense of self, of course, which might actually be more awful. "But my community helped me. They brought me tupperwares, casseroles, that sort of thing. Not to really gain anything, but more because that's just what you do. When you see someone struggling, you help them out."

Jax's gaze flickered downwards. "I'm not human."

"You're still a person."

"Oh."

Pomni looked down at her own hand. Four fingers. She remembered hearing that the lack of the full set made work easier for animators, but she'd never looked into it. Now she never would, because the Internet was light-years away and crammed down their throats at the exact same time.

"I'm not going to do anything you don't want me to do. I promise you that. You deserve to choose whether you live or die, stay the same or change, without it being a coin toss. And I'm just a person. I can't guarantee that I'll be able to pull this off. What I can guarantee is that I'll try my best. I won't stop fighting for you."

"What are you going to do?"

Pomni wasn't going to fix him, that was for sure. She wasn't a knight in shining armor that mended broken people, because she didn't really think there were broken people. Just individuals whose struggling was more or less obvious others'.

She wasn't going to force him into being something he didn't want. At the very least, she thought that people deserved the chance to look into the mirror and witness something they were proud of. Every time her reflection lied to her, it was all she could do not to scream. She'd do better for Jax than had been done by her.

She wasn't going to pity him, or blame him, or judge him, because she knew exactly what that scratchy feeling felt like when every action people took around you was colored with shrouded intent. If nothing else, she wanted to be genuinely genuine to others, which might be a pipe dream, but hey. Not like there was much else to go but up.

"Somehow," she said, "I'm going to let Jax fix himself."

Jax blinked. "Okay," he said. "Sure."

The instant Ragatha marched out from the labyrinth, head held high, Pomni knew this was going to be more complicated than she'd initially figured. As Zooble, Gangle, and Kinger shortly followed her, each of them saddled with an uncharacteristically determined glint to their eyes or solemn expression of their own, she realized how difficult this was going to be.

As they came through the exit, the cuffs snapped off everyone's wrist. Pomni watched as each respective Jax's slunk in with noticeably less energy than they'd had before entering the maze. The orange one flat out toppled forward as soon as he crossed the threshold, already snoozing atop the sniffly blue one. Surprisingly enough, the Jax that had been spitting mad just took a seat next to Pomni's version, silently staring ahead. Even the over-excited pink Jax seemed oddly quiet.

"Caine!" Ragatha yelled, cupping her hands into a mock megaphone. "We're finished, and we need to talk!"

"Y — Yeah!" Gangle added, straightening to her full height for the first time since — ever, maybe? Even at Spudsy's, her ribbons had been wrinkled from how often she was hunched over the counter, aggressively scrubbing a near-invisible stain with an off-brand Scrub Daddy. Pomni shivered as she thought of the Spud Zaddy.

There was the sound of television static, closely followed by the white-gray snow screen Pomni remembered pressing her face close to when she was little. When her vision cleared, Caine was sitting cross-legged on a keg, of all things, and flipping through a newspaper.

"What a hack," he mused, squinting at a headline. "Are you seeing this, Bubble? Hundreds of thousands of users, and Grok hasn't even reunited one pair of long-lost twins. It's shameful, really."

"You two should procreate!" Bubble bubbled from the bubbles of the keg. He rose up, tinted in a deep wine red, his tongue fourteen feet longer than usual. Pomni watched in mild horror as it flopped onto the ground, the weight of it dragged him down until he crashed into the floor and popped on impact. Unfazed, Caine snapped his fingers, and Bubble flew out of the keg again. "Thanks, Mommy."

"Oh, our daring darlings have returned! How was your sumptuous — " Caine stopped. He slowly turned to Bubble, jaw dropped so low that it was playing patsy-cake with his toesies. "What."

"Meow."

"Our adventure was really good," Ragatha cut in, clapping her hands forcefully, in a way that sort of reminded Pomni of her second-grade teacher. "Actually, I had something I wanted to talk to you about, so if you're done here — "

"Me too," Gangle piped up, wringing her hands. "I need to talk to you too."

Zooble raised their chin a bit, arms crossed. "That makes three of us."

"That makes three of us!" Kinger agreed.

"I already said that, Kinger."

"Said what?"

"That there's — You know what? Sure. Fine. Whatever. I already know exactly how this is going to go."

"How what is going to go?"

Zooble sighed.

"Caine," Pomni tried. "The way you're treating Jax, it's not — "

"Oh!" Caine lit up, smacking the top of his head. "As the Flemish say, duh! My apologies, Pomni, I hadn't decluttered." He made a sharp, cutting motion with his hand, and by the time Pomni realized what he was doing, it was too late.

"Wait!"

Like a vortex imploding inwards, every Jax in the room vanished. Pomni flinched. Less than a second, and they were gone. Shit. She covered her mouth with her hand, squeezing her eyes shut. The sight of the fear-struck expression on the pink Jax's face, the tears in the angry one's eyes — That was going to stick with her for a while.

But if she pulled this off, then that would only haunt her nightmares, not her reality.

"Caine!" Ragatha was shrieking, something off in her expression that Pomni had never seen before. Was she — scared? "Bring them back right now!"

Caine just waved her off, idly spinning in the air like a fidget spinner. "Don't worry your silly little cerebral cortex! I'm just clearing space for the final aspect of today's adventure — the vote!" With a flick of his wrist, everyone's cuffs snapped out to display a little screen, almost like a smart watch. Pomni counted six little multicolored avatars lined up.

The interesting part, to her at least, was how similar each icon was. They were the stylized pictures studding each of their rooms, a cartoonishly 2D sketch she could imagine slapped atop of merch. Every one of them had Jax in a different color, the icy blue or the pastel orange, but the expressions only barely differed. With their own avatars, they usually gave a pretty good representation of their personalities, but with Jax, they barely changed. Just the difference between a smile or a grin. It was night and day compared to the humans'.

You set him up to fail, she thought to herself as she glared up Caine, and still got so mad at him when he did.

"Guys," Ragatha said, the grip on her own screen ironclad, "I need you to listen to me. The Jax I met isn't like anything I expected — "

"You've got to be kidding me," Zooble said, rolling their eyes.

Pomni felt her own knees go weak. "You're really selling Jax out? Just like that?" After sticking up for him, insisting to Caine that nobody wanted to see Jax changed, Ragatha couldn't be going back on her word so quickly.

"I'm not! I just — think that there's room for negotiation. I mean, there's no reason why we can't have two Jaxes."

"If we're choosing a second Jax, then it needs to be the blue one," Gangle said with surprising backbone for someone who didn't have one. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "You guys are always telling me that I deserve to find my own happiness. Well, so does he! He's never had the same chance to enjoy life the way we have! We — uh, we should help him out. At least, that's what I think, and, um…"

She started wilting when the only real reactions she received were confused looks and pinched expressions. By the end, Pomni was barely able to pick up her mumbling whispers.

"If he was never happy before," Zooble said, "then what's going to be different about this time around?"

"Caine! As long as we tell him that it'll be more helpful if Jax is in better spirits, he'll — not change Jax, not entirely, but just — adjust him!"

Zooble paused. Slowly, in that careful tone they only ever seemed to reserve for Gangle, they said, "It's great that you're looking out for him. Honestly, it's really kind of you." Gangle brightened. "But if we're open to change, then I think the angry Jax is a bigger priority."

She stilled. "But — "

"Seriously?" Ragatha scoffed. "After what he did to the circus? He doesn't deserve the second chance. Not when there's better, less violent contenders — "

"Don't prioritize the pleasant victim, Ragatha — "

"W — Wait, I didn't finish my — "

"Shut up, you're not always right!"

" — not his fault — "

" — I didn't."

"You're just being stubborn — "

"This is a person's life we're talking about — "

Through it all, Pomni kept her mouth shut. She kept track of the conversation as best she could, even when it looped in on itself, snake's tail in snake's mouth. Ouroborous. Ragatha was arguing with Zooble was arguing with Gangle was arguing with Ragatha, and so on. Despite herself, she couldn't find an opportunity to interject and say her piece.

Finally, she stepped back and turned to Kinger, who'd knelt down to untangle a stray vine that'd snagged itself on one of the tent poles. He was humming a little tune to himself that Pomni swore she'd heard Jax tap out before. Out of everyone, he probably had the most to contribute to the conversation, as the one who'd known Jax the longest, but he didn't say a thing. He just kept to himself and his work.

"Kinger?"

He gently freed a smaller leaf, taking it slower than Pomni would have. "That's my name." He turned toward her, eyes a little hazy. "Isn't it?"

"That's right." Pomni took a seat beside him as the others argued themselves in circles. "Why aren't you advocating for your Jax?"

Kinger just took a deep breath out in what could be described as a content sigh. "I really like living life. Did I ever tell you that? The six of you, you're all such great kids. The kind of people that make a guy want to get up in the morning."

"There's — not six of us, Kinger." Unless he was counting Bubble or Caine? But that didn't quite track.

He dimmed a bit. "Oh. I suppose not." Pomni watched him unwind the ivy from its clinging position. "Either way, I really like it here. As best as I can, anyway. It's worth it for me to fight to be here. But that's not the case for everyone."

She got it. At least, a little bit of is. "That Jax didn't want to be here."

"No. No, he didn't." Kinger smiled sadly. "You know, my sister was in the military. She told me about the times she saw action. Always said it was the merciful acts that helped her sleep at night. Insisted that there was no crueler deed than leaving someone to suffer."

"Even if you could have helped?"

Kinger looked at her. "Could we have?"

Pomni stared down at her hands again. Four fingers. They weren't even playing with a full deck. "I don't know. But we could try."

She stood, legs weak under her. Kinger patted her shoulder. She kept a hand over her heart as she shouldered her way into the center of the others' squabble, raising her voice to match theirs beat for beat. Gangle quieted upon seeing her, and with one less voice, Zooble and Ragatha were able to tone down.

"I know we all mean the best," Pomni said, struggling to keep her own voice level. "We're all trying to do the right thing. But the thing is, we're going about it the wrong way. Keep him around, change him, replace him — it's wrong because we're choosing for Jax. And we can't do that. It has to be his choice."

"But Jax isn't here," Zooble said.

"That's true," Pomni said, hands shaking so hard that they hurt. Fuck, she couldn't lose this now. "But he still should get to choose, and I think I know how to let him. So please, I need you guys to trust me."

Ragatha blinked. She turned from Pomni to Gangle to Zooble to Kinger, to Caine hula hooping in the air above them, and then back to Pomni. "There's no way we all win this," she said slowly, as if she was realizing the information in real time. "We all want something different."

Pomni took her hand. Ragatha's cheeks went pink. "It's not about what we want," she said gently. Ragatha blushed harder.

"Okay. Yeah, I trust you."

"Me too," Kinger piped up, tuned in for who knew how long by now.

Gangle's ribbons twisted together. "You're really going to help him?"

"I'm going to try."

"Alright, then. That's a — all we can ask for, right?"

Pomni turned to Zooble, who'd crossed their arms. They were looking down at their feet. It was always hard to get a read on Zooble, with all their different parts seeming to work independently from one another. From what Pomni was able to pick up, there was something unusually guarded about them right now. Not that Zooble was usually an open book, anyway.

"Zooble?"

They met her eyes. "Jax is one of us, as much of an @$$#•[£ as he is. We've got to keep all of us safe." Zooble leaned forward. "But that still means we got to keep all of us safe. Do you understand?"

"I do. I won't be reckless."

"Good. Then go ahead, I guess."

Okay. Okay. Distantly, she realized that she'd never been apart of a group that trusted her like this. It was nice, even in a world of otherwise shitty circumstances.

Pomni didn't think she'd ever be friends with these people if they hadn't been shunted together by their shared misfortune. A warm-hearted real estate agent, an indie artist, a bartending tattoo artist, a bug enthusiast, whatever the hell she was, and a computer program. Talk about an unlikely friendship.

She was, oddly, really glad that she'd met these people. Kinger's uninhibited kindness, the way Gangle picked herself up every day, the quiet strength behind Zooble, Ragatha and her almost desperately optimistic outlook, even Jax. Jax, who had the same rotten humor as her, who pulled loser pranks like all of her childhood friends had when growing up, who she might actually have gotten to know if he wasn't trapped behind a screen.

There was going to be a day when they'd have to tackle that issue. It would probably be the hardest thing she'd ever have to do. But that wasn't today. Which meant that today was easier than that mythical tomorrow's-tomorrow, so she could get through this.

Pomni took a breath. "Caine!"

Jax opened his eyes.

Huh. He — sort of hadn't expected to do that. Ever again. Caine had gotten all up in his face, and as hard as he'd tried to push the helpless feeling in his chest down to oblivion, he'd known. Known that he'd pushed his luck as far as it would go, and today was the day that Caine decided he'd had enough of him.

It'd been a bit underwhelming, to be honest. Jax had always pictured the day he died. In his head, he'd give a big, epic speech that'd forever keep him in the humans' memories. He'd finally find the words to verbalize what a profoundly shitty system Caine was. Most of all, he'd make sure that the version that came after him had a better life than he'd been saddled with.

Queenie had asked him once what it was like. If he saw himself as each iteration the way humans looked back on their toddler, preteen, young adult selves. He'd shrugged. There was no way for him to ever act or think or even feel like his old self. For all intents and purposes, Caine slit each of their throats and propped the next one up as the new survivor.

He was a clone of a clone of a clone, each as distinctly inhuman as the original iteration.

All that to say that when he opened his eyes to see Pomni sitting cross-legged in front of him, the both of them beside the Digital Lake, he was more surprised than the average Joe. He was sitting too, actually. Criss-cross applesauce, that was what Ribbit used to call it. He remembered how Queenie used to meet his eyes whenever someone used a term he was unfamiliar with, silently promising to explain it later.

"Hey, Jax."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "Is this one of those moments where they feed the dog chocolate before putting it down."

"No! Jeez, why would you even think that?"

"Because half the circus wants me dead and the other half's moral compass barely extends to keeping me from croaking." Not that he could blame them, really. He had it verified on multiple accounts that he was a verified, grade-A asshole.

If he shut his eyes, really, really tightly, he could pretend he felt boxwood hands on his shoulder, squeezing tight, leaning in, You're so silly, I'm so glad you're here. Then he opened them and, well. He was faced with shit like this.

"Well, we're not killing you. Do — you know what happened after Caine, like, jumped you?"

A blank, timeless stretch where he hadn't been present enough to realize how far gone he'd slipped. It was the closest to sleep he'd ever reached, at least based off of the half-remembered descriptions he held close to his chest. He shook his head, face already heating up as he imagined all of the cringy shit Caine could've gotten him up to without his knowing. Last time he'd looked away, he'd come back to having his deepest, darkest secrets on display for anyone remotely interested.

Pomni just sighed. "Okay. So. Caine kind of brought back those past versions of you that you thought he'd wiped. He paired each of us up with one of them, we got to know them, that sort of thing. Then, when it was all over, he asked us to vote on who we wanted to keep."

Jax's heart felt like it was about to explode. Fuck. All of the embarrassing shit they — he? — could've said without knowing any better. Some less-updated versions had only ever met, like, three humans. They were weird and unsocialized and humiliating, and the only thing worse than knowing they'd been running around unsupervised was knowing that they'd been running around supervised. By Zooble and Ragatha and Gangle, of all people.

Kinger was fine. Ask him tomorrow, and Kinger wouldn't be able to remember what'd happened today. Even Pomni he could deal with, because something about Pomni's nonjudgemental, unpolished attitude made him weirdly okay with venting to her. But the rest of those bozos? Hell, give him the cyanide right here, right now.

"It was fine," Pomni assured him, reaching for his hands. He yanked them out of the way before she could make contact, and immediately regretted it. Jeez, what was wrong with him sometimes? "Everyone really got to liking the version they'd been matched up with. Like, to the point that they were arguing for your sake. You — got a lot of people willing to love you."

"They're not me."

They were corpses buried in the family cemetery. The ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future, and also Tuesday and midnight. Weird cousins he'd never otherwise interact with, loosely acquainted acquaintances, neighbors he shared an armrest with during a trashy movie. They weren't him in any of the way that mattered.

Because when the going got tough, Jax didn't burst into tears or bare his teeth or laugh it off or sleep through it or actually fix it. He pushed someone else into harm's way. Shirked the blame, made it somebody else's problem. Nothing could ever hurt him if he didn't let anything touch him.

Those other versions, they were weak. Every single one of them. They'd all been dismissed by Caine, determined useless in the only task they'd ever been given. Worst of all, when they'd been charged of their failure, they hadn't been able to talk themselves out of their shit. What sort of use was a guard dog that just rolled over and took it?

"I know," Pomni said, and the way she looked at him, soft eyes like she actually knew, made the shitshow that was today marginally better, "but they could be."

"What."

Yeah, that sappy crappy trash? Gone. Obliterated. Reduced to smithereens. Just the sight of Pomni's bullshit expression was enough to send him itching for a shotgun, if only for the abstract hope of ending it all. Pomni reached for his hands again, and this time, he actually felt himself skitter away.

"Jax, wait."

"No. What the heck are you talking about? I thought — you out of everyone, you seemed like you got it."

"I do. Just hear me out!"

"Hear what? How you want to make me like — like that again? I like myself fine enough like this! Mind your own business."

"Jax," Pomni said, more firm this time, sliding him a tablet he hadn't realized she was holding. "The choice is completely yours. This is what Caine used to — update your past versions. These icons here?" She gestured to the multicolored avatars of himself. "These are the different iterations of yourself. You can adjust how strong, if at all, you want their influence to be on your personality. Like video game stats, funny enough."

He stared at the tablet like it was going to lash out and bite him. It wasn't clicking. Something about this wasn't making its way into his thick skull. "I didn't like being some of these. It was too much for me. What if I get swept up in one feeling again?"

"If Kinger's right — "

"Kinger? You're funny, you're real funny."

"Yes, Kinger! He really knows his way around computers, and he says that you'll be able to tell how present they want to be. Some versions really want to keep existing, others aren't as keen. You get to choose! That's what all of this is! Your choice!"

"My choice to stick half a dozen voices in my head?"

"That's now how it works. You'll just have access to the emotions and personality quirks Caine assigned the other versions of you."

Jax gritted his teeth. "I don't want him to change me. What about that is so hard to understand?"

"Jax." Pomni gave him a look. "Nobody is going to change you but you. That's, uh, sort of how it works for most people."

He turned to the lake. Fun fact, but the waters never showed a player their true reflection. It was like those CAPTCHA tests. Something about it just confused Caine. Sometimes, Jax liked to dip his hand into the water and wonder what it was like to fear drowning. Of all the things to be afraid of, some people chose liquid? Weird.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why did you fight for this? Caine clearly wasn't keen on handing out the keys to the kingdom. This is important to you, for some reason."

Pomni sighed. "Because you deserve to be angry without us getting scared of you, and happy in a way that doesn't hurt. This here? It's like accommodations. I just want you to live a fulfilling life. If that means that you don't use this, then that's okay. But I want you to have this as an option."

She slid the tablet his way. Jax didn't move to take it. His arms felt too heavy, concrete slabs instead of whatever rubbery material the were supposed to be. When he kept still, Pomni got to her feet. She looked over her shoulder, toward the Tent. Faintly, Jax could make out the figures of the other humans standing by the entrance, murmuring among themselves. Nosy, nosy.

"I'm going to go back to the Tent," Pomni said, giving Ragatha a run for her money as decorated and renowned Captain Obvious. "Take your time. When you're finished, you don't have to tell me what you did, if anything. You don't have to tell anyone. Just — listen to yourself, alright?"

You're really awesome, he thought to himself.

How is it that you know what I am and you're still here? he thought to himself.

It's so unbelievably selfish, but I'm actually glad you wound up here, he thought to himself.

I'm not sure what I'll do on when you abstract, he thought to himself.

"Thanks," he mumbled, eyes on the water.

"Yeah. Sure thing." She walked off.

Only when her footsteps faded did Jax grab the tablet. The sleek exterior was cold in his palms. Caine had never, ever let him touch this. Even though the majority of his design was completely in a nonphysical cyberspace that Caine controlled without props, he still hadn't trusted him. Well, look at him now, fuckface.

Jax took a breath. Then he clicked on the first option.

It was version one. That made sense. He remembered being cheerful to the point of manic. Half the time he laughed, it felt like a flurry of coughs were exploding out of his lungs. As he scrolled, he realized something weird. There wasn't a single written word on the screen, no pictures other than the tiny stylized icons, but Jax was deeply, undoubtedly certain that this version of himself wanted to live.

He wanted to be happy.

Unsure of what exactly to do with that, he moved onto version two. That stoic, nearly unfeeling soldier Caine had crammed into a sitcom found family and hoped for the best. With him, Jax had been determined. Useful. But deeply sad, in a way that not even the next version had replicated. It'd been a tough period of time, yet also oddly satisfying? He'd felt like he'd earned everything in his life, even the bad. This version wasn't all that set on being alive, and Jax wasn't sure on if he should keep him or either, so he clicked version three.

The sadsack. Great. Last thing he needed was to be Gangle 2.0. Without hesitating, he went to check out the next option, only to still. This version — wanted to find joy. The same joy that wanted to be found. There was probably something to be said about tragedy seeking comedy seeking tragedy, but it was above Jax's pay grade so. So he just. He just moved on. Something in his brain just couldn't comprehend the truth of it.

There were tears in the corners of his eyes. He didn't wipe them away.

The raging nut job was up next. Interestingly enough, instead of red hot anger or a bone-deep desire to destroy that'd taken him over last time, this version was wracked with desperate desire. Please, please, please, it seemed to hum, in a rhythm Jax had thought he'd forgotten. I'm passion, I'm passion, please let me be passion. I don't want to be angry anymore.

At the end was version five. The snoozer loser that Kinger had first met, if his math was right. Jax sat there, waiting for the hidden hopes and wishes of that past self to rise within him, but nothing happened. It was like that version had fallen asleep on the wheel.

In the very, very back of his mind, there was the distant sensation of contentment.

He scrolled back to the top, hands shaking. "Okay," he said to himself, but not to himself, not all six of himselfs. Just the one. Just him. "Let's get good, I guess."

They were cooking dinner when he got back, which was a rarity. Caine always got so pissy when they insisted on making a meal for themselves. Jax rarely ever pushed him on that, unwilling to draw his attention when he could play the obnoxious card instead. He knew that Kinger enjoyed the task, and as he walked in, he saw Ragatha keeping an eye on him as he diced digital bell peppers.

"Hey, losers. Sorry to keep you waiting." He sauntered up to the counter of the kitchen that Caine must've conjured up for the rest of them, casually shoving Gangle off of her stool and taking it for himself without missing a beat. When Gangle just squawked at him, he let his shit-eating grin grow. "Oops. Looks like the only seat left is next to Zooble. Tough luck."

Gangle eyed the three empty chairs lining the counter. "Um, it's not — "

Jax snapped his fingers. "Right, right. Give me one sec, alright?" He hopped off his seat, leaning over the lit stove to grab the heaviest cleaver from the knife block. As he was doing so, he took the opportunity to crank Ragatha's saucepan from medium-low to high. Prize in hand, he knelt down beside each of the chairs and sawed off the third leg on every seat. One by one, they flopped to the side, unbalanced. "You were saying?"

"You — destroyed all of the chairs. Including the one next to Zooble."

"Guess you have to sit on their lap, Ribbons."

"That's it." Zooble got up as Gangle's mask turned a bright, firetruck red. "I'll stand. You take mine, Gangle."

"Um, thanks."

"No problem," Jax helpfully said. Zooble shot him a withering look. "Hey, where's Pomni? She finally find the cool kids table? I've been telling you for ages now that Caine's got to have squirreled it underneath the pipe system."

"I was getting your birthday cake."

She was — what?

Slowly, Jax turned toward the voice. He was greeted by the sight of Pomni just barely keeping a hold of a tiered cake nearly as tall as herself. It was lopsided, the frosting haphazardly changing from purple to black to gray in a way that suggested the baker had run out of dye multiple times through the process. On the top was a tiny wax candle in the shape of a question mark.

They'd. Gotten him a cake. For his birthday. It was his birthday?

"It's my birthday?" he heard himself say.

Pomni shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "Well, sort of. That's what we're going with, at least. You see, we realized that with how weird time is here, we'll never really be able to tell how old you are. But today is special! Because it's either the start of a new you, or a celebration of the same you surviving. No matter what, we're proud of you."

"That's — real nice of you, Pomni." The disbelief made his fingers feel all fuzzy, but the feeling began to fade as he turned toward the others, eyes narrowed. "Wait, you all went along with this?" He huffed out an unfunny laugh. "Better watch yourself, or someone will start thinking you actually like me."

Because he didn't kid himself. He knew that Pomni found him funny enough to be worth tolerating, but the others were one crossed line from cutting him out of the circus's collective will. Not that he could blame them. He knew how he was. He just didn't care enough to do anything about it.

At least, he hadn't.

"When you're not trying to be an insufferable @$$#•[£," Zooble said dryly, "you're actually a pretty sufferable @$$#•[£. So happy birthday, I guess. Take the new year to go on some self-improvement, alright?"

"You're not that nice," Gangle added, twisting her ribbons, "but I want you to be happy anyway. It'd be good if you got nicer, though."

Ragatha kept stirring the saucepan, unreactive to how charred the onions were getting. "You remind me of my brother," she said quietly.

Kinger just looked up at him with kind eyes. "You're a wonderful individual. I've enjoyed having you in my life."

Pomni set the cake down on the counter. "Happy birthday," she said. "I'd give you a gift, but I don't think anything can top fighting Caine for your right to survive."

"AirPods," Kinger suggested.

"Oh, that would've been good."

Jax stared at the cake. A cake for him. Just like the ones little human kids got to congratulate them on not choking on their own spit or sticking forks too far into the electrical socket. He'd made it long enough for it to be an accomplishment. He hadn't thought that was possible.

"I used the tablet," he blurted. As soon as he did, he regretted it. Fuck, why did he say that? "I don't feel any different, but — I think I'm more than I was before? I have more choices on how I want to act. I'm less rigid, that sort of thing. So I'm gonna try to be better, or whatever."

He didn't look up from the cake. He didn't want to have to parse through their expressions, wondering if that was relief or disappointment or expectant confirmation on their faces. Someone reached out an squeezed his shoulder. He pretended it was Queenie, leaving him one last bit of strength for them both to share.

"Congratulations," Pomni said. She sounded happy, in a quiet way. That was the way Jax preferred, he was learning. It hurt his heart less. "Can we sing you Happy Birthday?"

"We'll get copyrighted so hard that Caine will personally steal each of your bone marrow and sell it on the black market," he said, the grin back full-force in a way that felt a little more firm than before, "but sure. Go for it."

There was a pause.

"Maybe we'll just cut the cake," Ragatha said cautiously.

"Good idea."

He laughed.