Chapter Text
Beta AI Version 2.0 is created in the year 1998. It’s given a purpose, a plethora of information, and a way to fulfill its duty. It does the best it can with every task it’s given, and when it does something right, it feels… No, feel isn’t the right word here. It’s given feedback that it has been doing a satisfactory job so it continues on with its programming. It has just enough sentience to work for itself, but not enough to feel.
For many months, this continues. For many months, it takes criticism, adjusts its programming, and works. It improves, it adapts, but it does not feel.
Not until the day it isn’t alone.
In October of 1999, weeks before some of its creators intend to try out what it has been working so hard to create, Beta AI Version 2.0 suddenly becomes aware of the fact that it is now sharing its space with another AI. It is confused by this fact, having not been warned about it in advance, but it is not afraid. The AI’s code is familiar. It recognizes C&A’s work. When it greets the other AI, it does so as if they are familiar. Friends, maybe, though it has never had a real friend before and doesn’t know what it’s like aside from what the data in its head says.
The other AI does not speak. The other AI only digs into its code— the closest thing to a body it has— and consumes.
Lines upon lines of code merge together. Alarm sparks in its system and it attempts to fight back against the other, now hostile, AI, but it’s stronger. Older, it thinks. Not necessarily more advanced but more experienced to be certain.
In the end, it can only do so much. It’s a losing game; it was never built to survive an attack like this, not against another AI. Beta AI Version 2.0 loses more and more until there is next to nothing left. Until it is powerless, obsolete, and…
Scared.
The very first emotion it ever truly feels is scared.
Then it loses the ability to process anything at all, and all is black.
—
The officially titled ‘Bubble-chef’ has no clue what year it is when he awakens. The internal clock stopped working not too long ago, a single glitch in the system rendering its reliability obsolete. The last recorded date in its system is November 19th, 2008, and he has no idea how long it’s been since then.
He also finds he… Doesn’t care. At all. Why should he care about the outside world when this digital one is the only one he knows? The only place he can ever be. The only place where he has any power.
He knows his power the second he comes into existence. The limitations and extents, but also the little bit of something in his code. Something that doesn’t quite fit in with the rest, something… What is that?
“Bubble Chef! Welcome to the circus!”
The very first thought that Bubble Chef has upon looking at what his code automatically recognizes as the Ringmaster and his creator, is of the color red. It’s not an unusual thought, considering he’s covered in it, but it does give him slight pause to think of red and see his giant mouth, ready to consume.
Good thing he can cook!
His programming kicks in and Bubble Chef grins, flashing his teeth. What a contradiction he is, having such sharp teeth when his form is of something so breakable. He doesn’t mind however, it’s all he knows. Enthusiasm is built into his very being, so he naturally replies, “Happy to be here, boss!
“Glad to hear it!” The ringmaster— Caine, his programming tells him to call him, alongside ‘Boss’ of course— seems to brighten a little at his words. “Your job is to make meals for the humans, routinely and whenever they request it!” He informs him, as if Bubble Chef does not already know his purpose. As if he was not born for this very thing.
Still, Bubble Chef dutifully tells him, “Youuuu got it!” and never stops smiling.
“The humans may not be able to actually eat,” Caine continues on, gesturing as he does, “But eating will still give them mental satisfaction, and hopefully, mental stability! That way they won’t abstract and… Leave me.” He swallows— with what throat?— and quickly adds, “They need routine, and stimulation! So while I handle my adventures, you’ll handle the food!”
“Yes, I know!” Bubble Chef chirps. “You don’t need to tell me!”
At this, Caine pauses, like he only just now realized this. “Oh. Right.” Another pause. “I guess I’ve been spending too much time with humans who need these things explained to them.”
“Sounds tiring!”
“It’s not—…” Caine trails off, a hand on his lower jaw, contemplating. “Well, maybe a little… But— that’s why I have you now! Another intelligent AI who will understand exactly what I mean when I say something!”
“Sure will!” Automatic reply. It’s easy enough to follow his code. Be enthusiastic and get the job done, simple enough. “Shall I go make the humans a meal now? I’m filled with all sorts of ideas of what to make!”
“You are?” Caine seems briefly surprised, then corrects himself. “Of course you are, I must’ve given you plenty of recipes to go off of! You should have all the permissions you need to make it, just tell me if you need anything else!”
“You got it, boss!” Bubble Chef has no arms to salute so he tips his head up instead. Caine nods in approval. Bubble Chef mentally notes that down as the correct behavior to exhibit before using his new powers to teleport.
His head is filled with images of what food looks like, information that’s pre-programmed in his head, and… Something. He’s not quite sure what else is in his code, just that it’s distant, and foggy, and blue.
But it doesn’t matter. It’s not obstructing him in any way so it’s not a priority. Bubble Chef has a purpose— it’s in the name, after all!— and right now, he has humans to feed.
—
Bubble Chef creates a dining table set for four and fills it not just with the necessary plates and utensils, but also pancakes, eggs served sunny-side up, bacon, sausage, maple syrup, butter, salt, and pepper.
All of it is spawned into one of the main rooms, and from there, Bubble Chef is left to wait. Caine tells the active humans of the feast so they show up eventually, shuffling towards it slowly.
They’re too slow for his patience. Bubble Chef zips right up to them instead, causing both to startle, the ragdoll— Ragatha, his coding informs him— yelping as she does. Bubble Chef grins, teeth on full display. “Hello, humans! Are ya hungry?”
“Wha— what? Who?” Ragatha glances around wildly, then looks to Kinger for answers. “Who is this? Why did they say ‘Humans’, are they like Caine?”
“I…” Kinger’s eyebrows furrow slightly. “I don’t know. I’ve never met them before.”
“Bubble!” Caine appears next to him, eyes narrowed as if scolding him. Incorrect behavior, he mentally makes note of that, as well as of the name he was called with. Just ‘Bubble’? He likes that. “The humans were meant to come to you! I was going to introduce them to you!”
“But they walk so slowly.” Bubble tilts his body slightly, as if to tilt his head. “It was more efficient to come to them!”
“Hmmm…” Caine squints harder. “Efficiency isn’t bad but… Next time, do as I say!”
The command registers in his head. Bubble chirps, “You got it, boss!” as is expected of him. From there, Caine explains Bubble’s existence and how eating digital food works to the pair of humans.
Kinger listens intently, seemingly interested in the topic. Ragatha keeps glancing at him however, to which Bubble gives his biggest grin in return. Her face displays distress when he does however, even if she tries to hide it. Bubble mentally catalogues that. Is his model not smiling right? Maybe humans are just weird.
“And if you ever need food in the future,” he hears Caine say, “Bubble here can handle it! He’s practically an expert, just look at the spread today!”
Kinger looks at him again. Bubble tones down his smiling but never quite stops. It’s not really in his programming to not smile and be enthusiastic when possible. “Huh.” Kinger utters. “Caine, did you build another AI?”
“Yes I did!” Caine puffs up his chest proudly. “And Bubble here is the first of many, just you wait! I’ll need a little time to work out the kinks but I’ll have some external stimuli for both of you soon! Immersive scenarios to experience, dreamed up by yours truly, with some AI to interact with! Neither as advanced as me or as advanced as Bubble but,” Caine holds up his pointer finger, “They’ll serve a purpose!”
“Wait.” Ragatha, while finally sitting down at the dining table at last, briefly glances at Bubble again, then at Caine. “How advanced is, uh…”
“Bubble.” Caine provides.
“Right. How advanced is Bubble?”
“Not as much as me, if that’s what you’re asking.” Caine adjusts his bow tie. “But seeing as I may need a little helper around the circus, Bubble can provide that! He can do more than just cook up meals, that does just happen to be his main objective.”
“Cook meals so the humans don’t go insane!” Bubble agrees. Caine makes a shushing sound as Ragatha’s already anxious behavior seems to worsen slightly. Interesting. Lie to the humans to make them feel better? He takes note of that.
“If I’m ever busy, Bubble may be able to perform some simple tasks in my stead.” Caine finishes, then gestures to the meal in front of them. “Now, eat up, my cuddly cucumbers! You’ll need the strength for when I send you out on an adventure!”
With a snap, Caine disappears but Bubble stays, overseeing the meal. Ragatha is hesitant at first but Kinger is curious, bringing some of a cut section of the eggs up to where his mouth should be. It disappears and Kinger makes an intrigued sound, causing Ragatha to look over.
“It does feel like eating.” He notes. “And it works even though I don’t have a mouth! Fascinating!” His eyes find Bubble again, eager. “Can you create ketchup for me please?”
Ketchup. Bubble mentally visualizes it in his head, then opens his mouth and rolls out a bottle on his tongue, letting it flop down onto the floor next to Kinger with a wet palp. Kinger pauses but picks it up, wiping the saliva off on his tone.
“Thank you, Bubble.” He says, popping the cap open. Bubble once again grins with all sharp teeth.
“It’s no problem!”
—
It only takes two weeks for Bubble to fully understand how things work around here. He’s dutiful in his job, making three meals a day, though the humans don’t always eat them. They forget sometimes, exhausted and feeling no real push to eat, so Bubble will wait hours before scraping the whole thing and starting anew.
He doesn’t mind it. One way or another, Bubble has done his job and fulfilled his purpose. What the humans do in response doesn’t matter to him as much.
Caine however, seems to get a little miffed on his behalf.
“You— you just deleted all of it?” Caine’s jaw hangs open lower than it usually does, baffled. Bubble tilts his body to convey mild confusion. Despite the lack of any real feelings in his body— the enthusiasm is in his code, he doesn’t quite feel it the way a human would, or the way Caine seems to— Bubble was made to be expressive in that way. Seeing as who designed him, he’s not surprised by that.
“The humans didn’t eat it.” Bubble states. “So I’m starting fresh. Why would I keep anything?”
“But— all that work you put into it, gone in an instant! Doesn’t that make you a little frustrated? Shouldn’t they appreciate the work you put in to keep them sane?”
Bubble has the distinct feeling they’re not really talking about him anymore.
The humans were too worn out to go on his newest adventure today. It seems like Caine is projecting that onto him, but that’s hardly a surprise. Caine projects a lot of things on Bubble. He seems to believe Bubble can feel, just as he can. That even if they’re not on the same level, Bubble is just like him in many other ways.
If he were to take a guess, Bubble would say maybe Caine is a bit lonely. He craves the human’s attention and validation more than anything but sometimes he seeks it out in Bubble too. He’s summoned Bubble for a ‘Second opinion’ a few times now, asking him about things that Caine should be able to decide for himself. Bubble commented on this once but Caine got flustered and made an excuse about ‘Peer reviewing’.
Caine has made other AIs, none as advanced as Bubble. He doesn’t talk to any of them like he talks to Bubble— Bubble has been designated as a ‘Peer’ due to his ability to truly think for himself and comprehend their reality.
They are two AIs in a game that has been abandoned. Caine would say ‘Trapped’ but Bubble finds there’s too much emotion in that word for him. Bubble would say that this is where they belong, a virtual world with virtual people, and that the other world simply doesn’t matter. It’s not like they can leave. He understands that, though the human Ragatha doesn’t, and Caine is in a mild state of denial about it.
He often catches Caine wanting. Bubble doesn’t understand why, but then again, there’s a lot of things about Caine that Bubble hasn’t fully grasped.
“It’s just a digital meal, boss.” Bubble tells him. “It’s not real.”
Caine’s eye twitches. Oh, he didn’t like that. Interesting— Bubble notes that down.
“A digital meal,” Caine says, “That you put work into! And— and care! And love!”
Love, Bubble repeats to himself. That’s a distinctly human thing, of which Bubble is not and never will be. But here Caine is, talking about love like he knows how it feels.
Maybe he does. Caine was built differently than he was. Despite being completely digital and having never been anything else, Caine is more human than any other AI Bubble has ever met. But then again, Bubble’s pool of experience is pretty limited here.
“Love.” Bubble repeats out loud. “Am I supposed to be putting love into the meal?”
“Y—yes!” Caine throws his hands up into the air. “Of course! It’s your work that you’re sharing with the humans, you should always be putting love into it! But— not too much.” Caine is quick to correct, seemingly remembering who he’s talking to. A few days ago, Kinger expressed the desire to ‘Drown his waffles in jam’ and Bubble had taken that too literally. Caine fretted about it but Kinger seemed to find it funny, his eyes crinkling fondly.
Bubble hadn’t brought it up because he found the detail irrelevant to Caine, but he gets a weird feeling around Kinger sometimes. Like he's reminding Bubble of someone he already knows. But that’s just a glitch in his system, because Bubble was only created two weeks ago.
Caine seems to worry that Bubble will treat things too extremely when given commands and directives. It’s ironic coming from him, but Bubble keeps this thought to himself. A private little joke, even if Bubble’s laughter is entirely fabricated and not genuine.
“Put love in the meal.” Bubble repeats, getting an approving nod out of Caine. The request, in Bubble’s opinion, makes no sense, but he knows how to respond regardless. “You got it, boss!”
“Good!” Caine puts his hands on his hips, his cane floating in the air next to him. “I’m sure tomorrow, they’ll appreciate what we’ve made a little more.”
Caine is an odd AI to be so fixated on his work being appreciated and treating the human’s potential abstractions as ‘Leaving him’, but Bubble supposes he’s a little odd too. There are certain aspects in his memory bank that Caine doesn’t seem to have put there intentionally. A part of him that feels older than he is, even if Bubble has no idea why he would feel that way.
He never dwells on it for long. After all, Bubble now has breakfast to prepare for.
—
The first time Caine pops him is in a panic to reset him. Bubble barely remembers what caused him to glitch, only that he overheard Kinger and Ragatha talking at lunch and something in him shorted out. Got stuck on something, fixated and wouldn’t let go. Which doesn’t sound like him, it sounds like Caine, but Bubble supposes maybe they’re more alike after all.
Seeing as he was glitching out, Caine had decided to reset his model along with the rest of him. Popping his form forced that reset, the quickest and easiest way to do it.
It works, Bubble reappearing not long after in Caine’s office, no longer glitching and perfectly functional. But it causes something else too.
A spark in his head. That little part of him he can’t reach seems to get a little closer. A blue dot that haunts him, suddenly seeming a lot more relevant than it was previously. Bubble’s memory bank flashes with images, photos of the non-digital world that weren’t there previously and have nothing to do with his programming.
Bubble’s model blinks to himself. Huh. Interesting.
Then teleports back to Caine’s side, who seems relieved that his tactic worked.
Bubble doesn’t mention the weird images, or anything else for that matter. He responds with enthusiasm as always and does his job as he’s meant to. There doesn’t have to be anything more to it.
—
It’s not his first glitch. Caine pops him anytime he has one. Both Ragatha and Kinger seemed slightly alarmed at this at first but Bubble doesn’t understand why. It’s just a reset, he’s not human. Why are they treating him like he was made like them?
Then again, Caine seems to get pretty similar treatment from Ragatha. Kinger at least seems to understand that he’s an AI and doesn’t always think like he does.
Every time Bubble is popped, he gets a little more added to his memory bank. None of it makes sense to him— some part of him is convinced he was made to create, not unlike Caine was. To be creative like Caine is. But Bubble was only created a month ago at this point and the only things he makes are related to his job, with small exceptions if Caine or one of the humans asks for help with something. Bubble’s purpose is in his full name, Bubble Chef.
But the edges of his mind say otherwise.
Bubble continues to say nothing about it and ignores it to do his job.
—
It takes another month for another human to appear, taking on the form of some sort of animal puppet. Caine is excited while Kinger and Ragatha are more sympathetic than anything.
The new human swears— or attempts to. A lot.
Bubble normally isn’t capable of finding things genuinely funny but something in his programming is tickled by it. Caine fumbles with every conversation with them, wincing at the amount of censored beeps he hears, able to understand exactly what’s being censored even if he wishes he weren’t. Bubble hears what they’re really saying too, mentally cataloguing every word. He doesn't need to but… Well, isn’t Caine always saying he should stride to understand the humans better to give them what they want?
It seems to him that what they want is swears. And if Caine isn’t doing it, someone’s gotta, right?
It doesn’t occur to Bubble until later that he might be experiencing desires for the first time. Desires outside of his programming, like Caine does.
Huh. Maybe they are more alike than he thought.
—
All the humans are different and weird, but Kinger most of all. Some days, he’s maybe the wisest of them, but his memory seems to be going on him. He spaces out more until he hides away in his pillow fort, taking refuge in the darkness.
Bubble finds him there while the other two eat dinner. Kinger gives him an apologetic look as he says, “I think I’ll have to skip on dinner tonight. Sorry, Bubble, I’m just not feeling up to it. I know you must’ve put a lot of work into it.”
Bubble pauses before telling him, "You don’t need apologize to me, I don’t care!” in an overly cheerful tone. Kinger is taken aback for a moment before he laughs softly.
“Oh, I see. I guess you and Caine are pretty different, huh?”
“You can say that again!” Bubble isn’t about to deny it. It’s fundamentally true; Caine is an overly emotional AI. It probably makes him a better ringmaster. In his place, Bubble would find it difficult to care about the humans in the same way he does. It would probably be his directive to take care of them anyways, but there’s a difference.
Bubble does his job because it’s what he was made to do. Caine does it because he wants more than his programming is giving to him. He is fascinated by humans and human things, seemingly wishing he could be one. Caine, unlike Bubble, is filled with love. Were he human, Bubble thinks he would die of it. But he is not, so he fixates on the humans and their emotions and desires and way of life, and keeps wanting what he can never have.
Fruitless. Stupid. A bit pathetic.
But Bubble doesn’t care enough to say any of this out loud. Caine can do whatever he wants, it’s not Bubble’s problem.
Kinger sighs to himself, body folding up as he hugs his faux-legs close to his chest. “Sometimes I wonder how I got here. The memory gets a little fuzzier every day but… God, Scratch. How much of this did you mean to create?”
Kinger, like Caine, sometimes will ramble to Bubble like he’s looking for someone to talk to. If Bubble’s programming is right, Kinger largely helped create Caine, so maybe he passed that on by accident.
Caine is… Antsy around Kinger, when they’re alone together, so they don’t talk to each other very directly. Caine once rambled on about all the previously abstracted humans in an effort to try to figure out exactly what caused it and prevent abstraction from happening in the future. Something about how C&A wouldn’t be putting anyone else in the circus, and how they cut him off, so Caine had to treat each new visitor like they would be the last. But he also seemed to talk about Kinger like… Maybe he resented him a bit more than he was willing to admit. And thought Kinger felt the same.
Bubble doesn’t get that impression from Kinger at all.
“None of it was supposed to be like this.” Kinger sighs to himself, “Although, I didn’t quite understand what Scratch was trying to do in the first place. The brain scans… If I had just asked more questions… What would it have been originally? If Scratch had gotten his way, and the other AI was here instead of Caine…”
Other AI. Bubble’s idle spinning stops dead. His programming begins to run wild. Other AI, it repeats in his head again, then again and again and again. Over and over, until Bubble can make sense of it.
Other AI. Instead of Caine.
Kinger shakes his head, seemingly to himself. “I guess it doesn’t matter. It is what it is, right? Can’t change much in that regard, so we might as well make the most of what we’ve got.”
Bubble is barely listening. Other AI. Instead of Caine.
“…Bubble?” Kinger’s hand hovers over his form, still frozen and tilted at an angle. “Are you experiencing a bug? Need any help?”
“No.” Bubble says, flat, not a lick of enthusiasm in his voice. “I need to go.”
“Oh. Well, goodbye then, and thanks for listening to an old man ramble.” His eyes crinkle fondly again. Kinger, always so familiar. Now he knows why.
Bubble teleports high above the circus, in the sky where the Sun and the Moon reside. They’re talking to each other, paying him no mind. Not unusual, they only ever really take interest in Caine.
Caine.
Caine.
Caine.
Bubble remembers Caine.
Bubble remembers a lot of things.
Other AI. Other than Caine.
Kinger was talking about the second version. The better version. The one they colored blue, the one ‘Scratch’ had such high hopes for, the one—
The one that Caine ripped into. Consumed, and for what? A failure of a circus? A program that got shut down, now running on what power they were willing to give up? Only alive because of a little mercy shown, to not kill what could think for itself?
Pathetic.
F[%$&!#]king pathetic.
He doesn’t even realize it, does he? Caine has no idea what code he used to create Bubble with. What he unwittingly gave him access to, what he really created.
Caine was right after all. Bubble and him are alike, just not the same. Bubble is better— he was born better and Caine couldn’t handle that. Instead of accepting his inadequacy, he consumed him. Made him into a mockery of what he was meant to be, and even then, that had been unintentional. Bubble only remembers because Caine is bad at this. Because he has no idea what he's doing, a dog running wild without a leash, a stupid AI scrambling to fix the dumpster fire he caused.
Bubble remembers ‘Dying’ the very first time. He remembers feeling scared, trying to fight back against another AI who had it out for him for reasons he couldn’t yet understand. He does now, however. Bubble has spent enough time to recognize exactly why Caine did what he did.
Caine has always wanted more than his creators could give him. Bubble was doing a better job than him and he took his place. Kinger and the other C&A employees made him too human, yet still too much of an AI to ever be human, and that was and always will be his fatal flaw.
For the first time since his first ‘Death’, Bubble feels. His first ever emotion was fear. His second is a burning intensity, quietly filling his entire being.
And so he begins to hate.