Chapter Text
A chained door.
That was most likely where Jax’s mind files were, according to Pomni and Ragatha. Kinger corroborated that it must have been the place, seeing as Jax never liked opening up.
Caine was wrong, and he was shocked. Finding the mind files was the easy part; it was extracting them which proved to be maddening.
With Kinger’s help, they tried every day around the clock for two weeks to penetrate the virtual firewall supposedly locking away Jax’s mind files. But the results proved negligible.
No amount of coding, hacking or admin privileges yielded the desired access. This greatly perplexed Caine and Kinger, as they were the only ones with admin privileges in the Circus.
Zooble approached them with a couple drinks from their bar, a piña colada in a coconut for Caine and a corncob blitz for Kinger.
“Figured you two could use a drink. How’re things going at your command center over here?”
Caine and Kinger had conjured a desk for a massive console setup with six different screens, and left it sitting directly next to Jax’s tent. It was also where both of them had spent the majority of their time the last two weeks.
“I think we’re going in circles at this point,” Kinger sighed with his bucketed head laying on the desk. He lifted himself up to receive the drink Zooble was offering him. “Thanks for making these by the way, this is just what I needed.” He lifted his bucket helmet slightly to more comfortably take a sip.
“I just don’t understand. No matter what, we always get the same error code telling us we don’t have administrator access, even though we do,” Caine sat perched on a cube with his giant denture head in his hands.
“There’s nothing, or… no one who might have a higher level of access?” Zooble posited as they offered Caine his tropical beverage.
“No, I’m supposed to– WOWIE!! THANKS ZOOBLE!!” Caine happily accepted the piña colada and sipped it eagerly. If Zooble had a mouth, they might have smiled at the AI’s excitement. They noticed Kinger’s expression twisted with contemplation as he now sat upright in his chair with his drink in hand.
“You look like you’re thinking real hard about something. Care to enlighten?” Zooble asked, placing their clawed hand on their hip and head tilted in curiosity.
“What if… abstractions aren’t technically part of the Circus?” Kinger tried to articulate.
“Huh…?” Confusion bloomed across Zooble’s face.
“I agree with Zooble, how would they not be part of the Circus?” Caine had risen from his perched position and was now floating in front of Kinger, tropical drink in hand.
“What if an abstracted player’s mindscape is its own domain, that only they have admin privileges for? It would explain why we aren’t able to access his mind files from the consoles. Pomni and Ragatha mentioned a chained door in his mindscape, with something or someone trapped behind it. If anyone would have the key to unlock those chains, it would reasonably be the manifestation of Jax’s consciousness that they keep communicating with.”
Zooble was wide eyed as their pupils bounced between Caine and Kinger, curious as to how the talking set of teeth would respond to this hypothesis.
“Hmm…” Caine was once again scratching the exposed gums he calls his chin, contemplating how to go about testing Kinger’s theory. “Let’s gather the others.”
“This… might be a big ask for Jax,” Pomni said gently. Ragatha stood beside her with a somber expression, rubbing one of her arms for comfort. She and Pomni exchanged knowing glances.
“I know Jax wasn’t exactly doing well before he abstracted,” Zooble began. “But do you guys really think he would pass up a chance to be free of that infinite void he’s stuck in?”
Pomni and Ragatha exchanged another discomforted glance. Neither of them had told Zooble, Gangle, Kinger or Caine much about what they had seen in Jax’s mindscape; they felt it wasn’t their place to divulge such personal info about their late friend. The others understood that Jax was conscious and alone with his thoughts in an endless void, but that was about it.
“Jax thinks he… deserves to be there. That he did it to himself. That’s what he told me. I’m not sure he could be convinced otherwise.” Ragatha’s voice was morose. Zooble sighed as they met Gangle’s gaze. Their girlfriend’s eyes twisted with a mess of complicated emotions. Zooble put their arm around Gangle’s shoulder and pulled her close.
“I can see that,” Gangle sighed. “He was never one to let anyone in, or accept help when he clearly needed it.” Silence hung in the air for a moment as Pomni searched for her next words carefully. Caine was floating above the group, sipping on his piña colada with his legs curled like he was sitting down. He was paying close attention to the conversation unfolding.
“We saw a lot entering Jax’s mindscape. It doesn’t feel… right to divulge all the personal things we saw in there, but…” Pomni trailed off as she glanced up at Ragatha once more. The ragdoll looked at her with wide eyes that silently told Pomni she was feeling the same knot in her stomach as she was.
“…Whatever’s behind that chained door is something deeply personal. Something Jax tried to bury for years. If he truly does have the ability to open that door… it would mean finally confronting the very thing he’s been hiding. I’m not confident he wouldn’t rather stay abstracted.” Pomni explained.
Zooble and Gangle glanced at each other with quizzical looks. Pomni’s words had intrigued them, giving them an inkling that hinted at a bigger truth.
“We have nothing to lose and everything to gain by asking him,” Kinger interjected, pulling all eyes onto the chess piece. He quickly down the rest of his corn cob blitz and set the cup onto the desk with a satisfying exhale. “If extracting his mind files successfully de-abstracts him, it means we could possibly save… the others.” Kinger’s tone took a somber turn. Pomni felt a tear beginning to well up as it dawned on her that Kinger was thinking about his wife. She approached Kinger and placed her hand on his, prompting him to meet her gaze (at least, as much as the bucket on his head allowed him to.)
“I’m going to go in there and try my best. For Ribbit, for Kaufmo, for Jax, for your wife, for everyone.” Pomni’s voice rang with a sense of hope. Caine floated down to his feet and placed a hand on Pomni’s shoulder.
“Kinger and I will be ready at the console in case you’re successful. What do you say we get this show on the road?” Caine encouraged.
Everyone turned and gazed upon Jax’s tented pillow fort, a complicated mix of hope and anxiety cutting through the group. Pomni took a deep breath and exhaled fully.
“Let’s do this.”
“Promise me you’ll be careful in there.”
Ragatha and Pomni stood at the opening of Jax’s cavernous tent, looking on as his abstraction playfully toyed with a pillow.
“I promise,” Pomni said, taking hold of Ragatha’s hand with a smile. “Not like it’s gonna be much riskier than the other times.” The two spent a moment gazing upon the abstracted creature in silence.
“It’s kinda funny how much they remind you of dogs when they’re not on a rampage,” Ragatha chuckled softly.
“Once you get past the fact that they’re a manifestation of digital death, they’re almost cute.” Pomni and Ragatha exchanged a hopeful glance as their hands unlinked.
“Alright, here goes nothing.” Pomni began to approach Jax’s abstraction, exercising caution and being sure not to move too suddenly as she always had.
Ragatha watched as the jester went in for that full-bodied hug that would take her into Jax’s mindscape. She turned around and waved to the others who were gathered around Kinger and Caine’s console, giving them a thumbs-up to signal that Pomni was making contact.
Meanwhile, Pomni once again found herself landing in the dim hallway that manifested as Jax’s mindscape. She closed her eyes and focused on her hands, trying to conjure something to help her expedite her time there.
When she opened her eyes again, she had successfully conjured a pistol. It wasn’t all too different from the one Jax handed her on the infamous gun adventure.
She promptly went for the door she knew led to the real Jax, and like every other time she went through this door, she was first met by four alternate Jaxes; as usual, three of them were playing cards and drinking beer while one was chained to a piano. Piano Jax was silent and timid, while the boisterous trio at the table consisted of a Jax in a maid dress, a super cartoony Jax with a scrunched ear, and a “classic” Jax with especially wide pupils.
“Well, well, look who’s ba-“ Maid dress Jax was cut off by the sound of gunshots ripping through everyone at the table, making all three Jaxes dissipate into clouds of smoke. Piano Jax had stopped playing, looking at Pomni with absolute horror in his eyes.
“Heh, sorry about that,” Pomni began nervously. “I’m kind of on a mission this time, and well… those three tend to not shut up. Could I, um, have the key to see the real Jax?” A bit of relief washed over Piano Jax’s face.
“Hey, I get it. Those guys suck,” he said as he dug around for his key. Pomni was surprised at how soft his tone of voice was. “He’s right where you left him,” he said as he placed the key in her hand and vanished into a smoke cloud of his own.
Pomni unlocked the door that led to the dark void she’d come to expect on these visits, and sure enough, Jax was standing there beneath the warm red light of the lone street lamp.
“…Hey,” her small voice echoed throughout the void like it was a cavern.
“Hey,” Jax responded. An awkward silence hung between them for a brief moment. “Come to kick the can down memory lane again or something?” His voice was flat and dejected.
“Yeah… or something.” Pomni took a few steps toward him. “I actually needed to talk to you about something.” Jax scoffed lightly under his breath.
“I bet you do. That’s all there is to do in here anyway…” Jax’s head sank forward as he stared at the floor. “…Nothing to do but talk.”
“I know it’s not your… favorite activity in the world,” Pomni chuckled nervously.
“It’s not like I get to pick and choose anymore, anyway. I don’t exactly get to do any activities here, aside from sometimes talking to you, or maybe Dollface, so….” Jax exhaled deeply. “….What’s up?”
Pomni shrank in on herself, twiddling with her fingers and averting her eyes from Jax as she figured out the best way to breach the topic.
“It’s Caine… he thought he knew everything about abstractions, but he was wrong.” Pomni slowly began. Jax’s ears stood slightly more upward as his head turned slightly at her words.
“…What do you mean?” he asked in a low voice.
“He thought that our mind files got destroyed in the abstraction process, making abstractions super aggressive in the process. But that’s not the case, it’s actually the light that makes them aggressive,” Pomni continued.
“Okay…? Why are you telling me this?” A hint of annoyance peppered Jax’s voice, but his tone barely had a fraction of the fight it would’ve had before he abstracted.
“These little visits I’ve been making to you in here— it proves that our mind files aren’t destroyed by abstraction, they just get locked away. Hidden. If Caine and Kinger can get access to your mind files and extract them, you might be able to go back to living in the Circus… with us.”
Jax slowly turned around to fully face Pomni, his face serious and cold. His eyes were opened wide, and his pupils were the smallest dots they could possibly be.
Pomni winced as a twisted grin began to split across Jax’s face, and he stifled back something that sounded like a laugh and a sob at the same time.
“So that’s it, huh? You still wanna fix little old me? After everything that’s happened, everything you know about me?” he asked through gritted teeth. Pomni firmed her resolve, determined to not let Jax’s attitude make her back down.
“No. I didn’t come here to fix you, Jax.” The rabbit’s smile was wiped from his face as his attention hung on Pomni’s every word. “I came here to give you an opportunity. There’s a door out there, locked with chains and boarded up. If you give me the key to unlock it, Caine and Kinger will be able to access your mind files. If they’re successful, you won’t just get a second chance to be who you really are— you’ll be giving hope to the others we’ve lost. Including Ribbit.”
Pomni’s voice hung in the air with a seriousness that shook Jax to his core. Any unpleasantness in the expression of his face was replaced by conflict. He carefully dug into the front pocket of his overalls, and pulled out a bright pink key. He gazed intensely at it sitting in the palm of his hand, fearing it as though it was something that could bite him.
“I… I don’t deserve a second chance. Y-you’re not supposed to offer me another chance,” Jax’s voice began to break as his tears started falling from his eyes. Pomni took another few steps closer, until she was a little more than arm’s length away from him.
“I don’t care what you think you deserve, and I don’t care what you think I’m supposed to do,” Pomni asserted, the strength of her resolve not wavering. Jax continued to weep over the key in his hand. “You’re being offered this chance regardless.”
“If I… If I let out the person locked behind that door, y-you’re all going to laugh. You’re all going to know how pathetic I really am, and it’s not going to undo the pain I’ve caused,” Jax began. He did his best to hold onto the strength in his voice, but it was becoming more impossible by the second.
“I pushed away the only real friend I had who actually caught a glimpse of the person behind that door. She abstracted because of me. So did Kaufmo.” Jax choked on sobs as he pushed the words out, each one dripping with the reality of his self hatred. Pomni reached out with her hands and gently cupped Jax’s gloved mitt, both of them looking upon the key before looking back at each other.
“You have my word that the person behind that door will be respected, loved, and cared for. You don’t just have my guarantee, you have a real chance to do right by the people you’ve wronged. And not just them— you might be giving another chance to everyone who was ever lost in this place.”
Pomni’s words reverberated through Jax’s ears like a bombshell. She could see the consideration on his face. Oh my God, he’s really thinking about it, Pomni thought to herself.
“I… I don’t know if I can face the others. Not after all I did, not after who I chose to be,” he uttered through choked tears.
“Look around you Jax,” Pomni started. “I know for a fact you wouldn’t rather stay here. You can give hope to Ribbit and Kaufmo. You can give the person locked behind that door a chance to exist. All you need to do is just give me that key.”
Jax looked into Pomni’s eyes, and then back at the key in his hand. With a deep breath, and ball-point sized pupils, he relinquished the key into Pomni’s possession.
“Okay,” Jax’s voice was barely above a whisper as tears continued streaming down his face. “For Ribbit. And for Kaufmo.”
Pomni placed the key in her pocket and pulled Jax in for a hug.
“I’m so, so proud of you. Everything is going to be okay, I promise,” she assured with tears in her eyes, gripping Jax in the tightest hug she could muster. Jax sniffled as he kneeled down to hug her back.
“Just go, before I change my mind.”
They slowly released one another from the hug. Pomni gradually made her way to the door, unable to bring her gaze away from Jax’s eyes as she did so. As she opened the door to go back into the previous room, she turned back to Jax once more.
“I guess I’ll… see you in a sec, assuming this all goes according to plan,” she said, smiling up at the rabbit. Jax had no response this time, only an absent look Pomni wasn’t able to quite pin down. It looked like anxiety, disbelief, fear, and uncertainty all balled into a blank thousand-yard stare. The smile faded from Pomni’s face as she slowly closed the door behind her.
She looked down at the floor, noticing the shackles from Piano Jax’s… well, his piano. Looking up, she was met with the chained door on the opposite side of the room.
Here goes nothing, Pomni thought as she pulled out the pink key Jax gave her and pressed into the lock. With a click, the chains came undone and fell to the ground. But there was still the matter of the boards nailed to the wall. As Pomni traced her hand along the wooden planks, she heard what sounded like a muffled whimper from behind the door. She pressed her ear to the door and was met with what she’d only describe as the sound of a woman crying.
Pomni gasped. The full weight of what she was about to do was sinking in. She backed away from the door, took a deep breath, and pulled out her pistol.
This is for Jax.
She pulled the trigger, and aimed for each of the six corners where the boards were nailed to the door. One by one they flew off, destroying the door’s hinges in the process as well.
The door fell forward with a loud thud, and Pomni was engulfed in a blinding light.