Chapter Text
Scratch, the first abstraction.
It had come into his mind easily, like clouds parting on a sunny day. Some of the details were slipping away from him now, but he… remembered. Him, Kaufmo, Queenie and the others. They were employees at Caine & Abel.
No… They were his employees. Bits and pieces of memories were coming back like volcanic ash fluttering down around him. Their first big trial run of the project. Getting trapped in the circus. Scratch abstracting and Caine’s first melt-down. Himself and Queenie arguing about… something. Queenie… abstracting. Caine putting her in the cellar... Ragatha entering the circus. Kaufmo begging him for help with the exit door.
Kinger’s head throbbed as he walked the halls of the circus tent. After Caine gave them the basket of lotions and teleported away, Kinger had exchanged few words with the others. They all wanted to know what was going on, and who was Scratch, and was there any truth behind what the “Abel” NPC had told them. Kinger had promised he’d answer all their questions in due time, but first… First, he had to speak with Caine.
If this were any other time, Kinger would check one of Caine’s regular spots. His small C&A-inspired office on the main floor of the circus tent, or the piano room, also on the first floor. He might even be tucked away in a corner of the fair grounds.
But at the forefront of Kinger’s mind, surfacing out of the murky waters of his old memories, appeared the door to the observatory. He had only been inside once before. The door was hidden, tucked behind a panel on the second floor away from all their rooms. There must have been some sort of wormhole effect because the inside of the room was located in the top of one of the two shorter towers of the circus tent. It seemed to resemble an attic more than a real observatory, but that was what Caine insisted it was when he showed Kinger all those years ago. It was a simple wood-floored room with an average-sized telescope and a small window to gaze out of. A gen-uine observatory!, Caine had called it excitedly. In a different situation, the resurfaced memory would have been silly and charming.
All Kinger felt now was a sickening hole in his gut.
It took a little searching, but Kinger located the panel. It shifted aside with a gentle hiss when he pressed it. The inset wooden door was slightly ajar, and Kinger pushed it open cautiously.
The room was messier than he remembered it. The telescope still sat on the left side of the back wall. The window behind it was shut and bolted. Hordes of bee drawings on notebook paper covered the walls, pinned up with thumbtacks. On the right side of the room, there was a desk, and past that, a cork board and papers tacked up on the wall. As Kinger moved closer he could see there were pictures at the tops of some of them. They were the players’ door icons, and underneath, writing. He could make out “Likes:”, “Dislikes:”, and “Life Biography:” on each of them. Beside these, he could see there were papers with lists written on them. He glanced at some of the titles.
Jax conversation prompts.
Zooble adventure ideas.
Settling in XDDCC Pomni.
Jokes for Kaufmo.
Insects for Kinger.
The chess piece looked away with a twinge in his chest. Caine had obviously put a lot of thought into these. Kinger tried to block out the thought. He scanned the rest of the room. Bookshelves covered all the available wall space that wasn’t already occupied by bees or papers. He had thought Caine would’ve been here, but apparently he had been mistaken. Kinger glanced back at the cork board and realized there was a strange set of blue prints tacked up onto it. Was it the circus? Kinger didn’t want stay long enough that Caine walked in on him, but he had to take a closer look. Could this have been the blueprint that Pomni and Ragatha said was in their adventure? The one that… “Abel”… showed them?
Kinger shuffled closer, the desk still separating him and the odd blue print plans on the board. He scanned them quickly. Something caught his eye in the corner of the paper. In small handwriting it said:
Unabstracted C&A employees:
Kinger
Kaufmo
He couldn’t make out the rest- scribbled beyond recognition.
Suddenly, a pair of red dentures floated up from behind the desk. It was Caine, his back to Kinger. The ringmaster placed a sticky note on the circus blue prints pinned to the cork board thoughtfully.
“Aah!!” Kinger screamed, hands flying up.
“AAH!” Caine shot up a foot in the air and wheeled around to see the chess piece.
“K-KINGER??!” Caine yelped. He stared agape and then, seemingly remembering, jumped back to cover up the cork board with his body. He posed awkwardly with one fist on his hip and resting his jaw on top of the other, sweating profusely. There was a pause as neither of them spoke. Caine cleared his throat.
“Ahem! You, uh, come here often?” He asked, the fingers tapping against his side giving away his nervousness.
Kinger ignored the poorly executed pick-up line and pointedly looked over Caine’s shoulder. Caine followed Kinger’s gaze and glanced back, his upper dental arch raised in dismay.
“Oh! Oh, this??? It’s NOT what it looks like, my dear Kinger!! Or rather… It IS what it looks like?! Haha, yes, YES, of course! I was simply making SOME NOTES!!! About my, ahem, admittedly not well-received “Escape the Circus” Adventure... I was just making some- ah- adjustments! Yes! ADJUSTMENTS to this silly ol’ prop o’ mine! Hahahaha! After all, I don’t want to let down all my precoscous little poplars with my new-and-improved “Escape the Circus Adventure 2: Electric Bugaloo”, DO I?!! In fact-”
Caine, having apparently shaken off his initial shock, began to ramble passionately. He floated off to the side of the cork board, but keeping an arm over the blueprint paper to hide it in a way that was so painfully noticeable.
Kinger was exhausted. His head hurt, and he was sick and tired of all these games.
“Caine, stop… I remember.”
It was quiet enough to hear a pin drop.
Emotions flitted across Caine’s face in a way that was so obvious it was almost comical. Horror, shock, dread, relief, guilt, and melancholy.
“I- I see,” Caine said softly. He dropped his arm from the board somberly, his ringmaster bravado gone. If Kinger’s head wasn’t hurting so bad, maybe he would have been surprised to see Caine more sober and reserved now than he’d seen him in years.
They stood in silence. Well, rather Caine floated. Kinger had a cold sweat cover his wooden body. Even the low level lighting here was sending a shooting pain behind his eyes, and it felt like a vice was crushing his head into splinters. Voices flickered through his mind.
“Honey, I’m scared. I don’t want to stay here anymore. Can’t we please just leave now? We can come back. We can't stay, there’s something’s wrong with the code.”
“Kinger, I know it sounds crazy, but you’re the only one I can trust with this. I- I think there’s a way out of here. Did we write an emergency exit into the program? Please tell me you remember what I’m talking about… I can’t be the only one of us left…”
Kinger thought when he got his memories back, he’d feel stronger. That he’d feel more like his old self. But instead he just felt weak and scared. Battered. He didn’t feel like a leader, or a protector. Right now he felt like a kid forgotten at the grocery store, afraid and all alone. He wanted to be strong for the others, for Ragatha and Pomni.
God, he wished Queenie were here.