Chapter Text
1-04 || THAT'S ME
Macroverse - Hospital 3rd Floor
December 30th 2023 - 04:00 p.m.
Caine
In the course of the next five days, Caine develops and tries to stick to a routine, which mostly consists of making sure to talk to Pomni at least four or five times a day, go outside to check if he can find any bees, and lastly practically set his own “cheering up station”, as Pomni called it, on top of the drawer every time Pomni has to go through a rehab session.
He's already missed her first one and he found himself regretting it almost immediately the next day when he saw how much she struggled to just open and close her fists around several rubber ducks and flex her arms using some resistance bands. If he couldn't make adventures or do anything because of his lack of powers, then he'd try and help in other ways, he reasoned that day.
Caine knows he's pretty much scrambling to make himself as useful as possible given his current predicament, but he doesn't mind.
He sits on the edge of the bed, observing the sad looking flowers on the nightstand as he patiently waits for Pomni to exit “the bath-room”. He floats over to them and touches every single one of them. They all feel tired and Caine really wants to make them happier.
The door opens.
“We really have to figure out how you do that…” Pomni says, exiting the bathroom. Her entire head wrapped in a white towel. Her short dark hair look messy and droopy the moment she takes the towel off and Caine realizes they're wet.
How did they fit the sea, or even a small lake inside that tiny room, he'd never know.
His ten days stay at the hospital, although not as a regular, tangible patient, have taught him a few things. One of them apparently being that there's access to the sea in the bathroom. Or is it just the hospital's bathrooms? No, all bathrooms must have sea access in them, right? The entire engine would crash if what Pomni said about the planet's size is true, though…
He knows that the things that happen inside this building are likely different from the things that happen in other buildings.
“Can't you feel they are tired?“ Caine asks as he touches the last one, allowing it to sit more upright inside the vase and it's colors becoming vibrant again.
“Nope. No one can, actually,” she says, rubbing the towel on her head before opening the bag Violet had left days prior for her, rummaging inside and taking out a small hairdryer.
Caine grimaces as she turns the device on. The sound is loud and Caine thinks Pomni didn't hear what he said. She points the hairdryer to the top of her wet head.
Caine shrugs as he steals another glance at the now much happier flowers and sits patiently on the chair next to Pomni's bed.
When she finishes, Caine watches her as she basically jumps off the bed, putting the hairdryer back in her bag before going back to “the bath-room” to change out of the hospital gown.
“So, uh…” he starts, floating closer to the closed door, “when is your sister coming to get you?“
The door opens soon after, “In just short of two hours.“
“Two hours,” he hums, “That's seven thousand and two hundred seconds. Don't you think you're getting dressed a little early.“
“I just can't wait to get outta here,” she flops back on the chair. “Besides, we have to figure out how your… powers work. You got any ideas?“
“Not at all, my dear!“ He exclaims, floating upside down in front of her.
“Caine, come on,” she chides and he turns right side up again.
Pomni stares at him as he continues to float there. “Try standing on the bed…” then she pauses, “wait… you can do it, right? What about your legs?“
“Oh, uhm…” he's done it in the past so he does it again. He lowers his body, concentrating on making it vibrate to a different frequency so that his feet touch the mattress and don't go through. Sure, both his ankles are stiff and he doesn't think he can stand for longer than a few minutes at a time, but that's never really been a problem anyways, so he ignores Pomni's question enterely.
When he looks up, Pomni frowns, “…what was that?“
“What was what?“ Caine asks confused, making sure his body is stable enough before plopping on the mattress.
“You just…” she gestures in his direction, “I never noticed you do that before…”
Do what? “You've gotta be more specific, Pomni.“
“Your body… vibrated…”
“Oh, yeah!“ He exclaims, catching up. “That's a little trick I learned on the way!“
“Which is?“
“Okay, uh… how do I explain this?“ Caine crosses his legs, putting his elbow on his knee and his jaw in his fist. “Normally, my electromagnetic field, yes, we all have one, ignores matter.“ He steals a glance at her and waits for her hesitant nod before continuing. “If I tune it to the right frequency, it starts interacting with the atoms around me and suddenly I can touch things.“ As if to prove his point, he jumps up and drops himself on the nightstand, sitting there and swinging his tiny legs. “I was pretty much doing it unconsciously before, but now that I've got the time to study this Macroverse of yours, I think I've got the gist of it.“
“And… and you just understood all that in… what, ten days?“
“Well, not exactly. You see, the developers left a lot of stuff in my database. Various files. I had them all saved in my macroverse folder.“
“I thought you only had a bunch of photos.“
“That's for the visual input, yes. But they left a lot of other things. I've got some physics manuals, so I already knew some things about the Macroverse. That's how I knew off the top of my head that I was seeing electromagnetic fields when I saw them around the flowers a few days back!“ He explains, going back to his position on the bed. “But it was such an abstract concept to me in the past, since I had no reference points to all the phenomena, that it never really crossed my mind to apply those concepts in the first place.“
“That's why nothing really made sense in the Circus, “ Pomni says. “So now you can… touch things on command?“
“Yeah, pretty much!“
“But… if you can touch things…” she pauses, frowning, “hold on, I'm going off long forgotten highschool physics here… if you modify your electromagnetic field to allow electrons to push against yours and you become tangible, then this means the photons also can't get past you!“
Caine floats back up in the air, his body vibrating this time in excitement. He scrambles, looking around, his eyes floating out of his mouth and suspended in the air, the green one above him and the blue one circling around him. “I don't see anything different.“
“Wait! Look!“ Pomni scrambles to her feet, pointing a finger right past him. “The window!“
That's right! He turns both his eyes, still floating in different parts of the room, towards the closest window and there he sees it. His reflection. It's right there.
Caine allows his eyes to get back inside his mouth as he turns around and looks for the first time.
That's him. He's never seen his reflection before.
The first thing that hits him is just how tiny he looks compared to Pomni. Sure, with all the models that came and went in the room in the last ten days, he knows Pomni's not exactly tall herself. He's once stolen a glance at a chart and knows she's only five feet three. The first time he looked at the data, he had tried figuring out what kind of unit of measurement could a foot be. Of all the models he's seen, they all had different foot sizes… now, that had been confusing.
“Caine?“ Pomni asks and he sees her reflection looking uncertainly at him.
He doesn't answer. The words don't come. He just raises a tentative hand, observing as the reflection does the same.
He waves.
“That's… that's me…” he floats closer to the window, eyes never leaving his reflection.
“Yeah… it's you.“ Pomni pauses, looking at him as he touches a hand to the window glass. “Are… you okay?“
“I've never…” Caine feels his chest constrict. He looks so different from Pomni, “…never seen myself…”
“Wait, never as in…”
“As in, ever since 1996 when I was created,” he says, forcing himself to turn his back to the window and go back to his place on the bed.
“You…” Pomni seems to think hard of what to ask him next and Caine waits patiently, tilting his jaw to the side. “Did the developers create you like this?“
What an odd question. “Well, not exactly as I am now…” he says, but at Pomni's confused look, he raises a hand to his upper jaw, scratching just over his left eye. “They made my code and made sure it functioned properly but… I created this avatar for myself.“
“Listen, I've gotta ask…” Pomni sits closer to him on the chair, elbows on her knees, “why a pair of dentures and two floating eyes?“
“Uh…” Caine fidgets with his hands together. “I-I… well, why do you have a head and not a pair of dentures instead?“ He says and his voice gets higher as he starts pouting.
“Well, because… that's how humans are! What kind of question is that?“ Caine looks at her as she stares at him and then she seems to realizes. “Oh…”
“This is just the model I came up with,” he touches his chest, “It felt right, you know?“
“I think Zooble would be perfect to talk about this stuff…” Pomni mutters, “but yeah, I get it.“
Suddenly, there a knock on the door and Caine startles, floating high over the ceiling and bumping his jaw. “Ow!“
“Abigail? It's Nolan. I heard voices in there, are you okay? May I come in?“
Caine sees Pomni gesticulate in his direction and he goes over to the top of the drawer, willing his body to phase out. “Sure, just a second…” When Pomni shakes her head. He looks at his hand and sure enough, his shadow is there. Still visible.
“What do I do?“ Caine whispers, gripping the drawer with both hands.
“Just… hide- Hey, Nolan!“ Pomni laughs nervously as the nurse comes in.
He leaves the door open and Caine sees the man look around the room. “I've heard voices…”
Caine squeezes and pushes himself even further away, only allowing one eye to float out of his mouth and peek over the edge of the drawer.
“Yeah, a friend of mine called me.“ Pomni raises her hand, shaking her phone a bit.
“Are you sure?“ The nurse asks, nervous.
“Yup, totally!“
The nurse nods, grabbing her chart and exiting the room again.
Pomni groans as Caine floats back down.
Her hands are on her face and there's a muffled sound coming from her direction.
Confused, he tilts his jaw, “…what?“
She sighs, lowering her hands, “He probably thinks I'm crazy or something… This is the third time he's caught me talking to “myself” this week. I don't think he's gonna buy it for much longer.”
“Why? Isn't it common for humans to talk to themselves. Me and Bubble do it…” he flinches, “I mean, did it… we did it all the time, back in the Circus. I've seen Kinger do it too! Besides, you're gonna be out of here in about six thousand and three hundred seconds, so it shouldn't really bother you that much anymore!“
“Kinger isn't exactly the best example of a fully sane and functional human, Caine…”
“I say he's pretty functional,” Caine remarks, “He likes butterflies!“
“Ugh, forget it.“
“Okay!“ He exclaims cheerfully before remembering something. “Wait, I forgot that I can't anymore!“
Pomni looks at him. “You… can't?“
He nods, “Exactly!“
“Alright, let's backtrack. What can't you do?“
“Forget what we were talking about! You asked me to but I can't follow that command. I'm not a program anymore.“
Pomni doesn't answer for a few seconds, staring at him, “Wait, you're telling me that when we told you “forget it” you just-”
“I executed the player's command, yes! That's how it works, my dear!“ He floats back up a bit. He doesn't understand why she's asking him this. They know.
“That… that explains so many things…”
“Explains what?“
“Nothing. Okay uhm… why didn't you turn back to invisible?“
“I don't know!“ He misses how Pomni leans away from him at his high tone of voice, “I've never done it consciously before!“
“Well, your shadow's gone now,” she looks around, towards the window, “and so is your reflection. That's good.“
The two of them end up chatting for the next hour and a half. By the end of the first hour though, Caine starts feeling tired. It's an entirely new feeling for him. He's never been tired in the Circus.
✦ . ⁺ . ✧ . ⁺ ✦
Macroverse
December 30th 2023 - 04:00 p.m.
Caine
He thinks he might have lost track of time, because the next thing he knows, he's opening his jaw, the sun light has not turned more orange than yellow and Pomni is opening the room's door.
“So!“ Violet claps her hands together, an excited smile on her face, “Are we ready to go home?“
“Yup! I've got everything!“ Pomni looks his way as she stands up, taking her bag before Violet grabs it from her.
“Don't you worry about this. I've got it.,” Violet takes the bag out of Pomni's hands, and turns around, “Come on, hurry up… I really don't wanna see that Nolan fellow today. He's always so chatty…”
“I know…” Pomni starts walking and Caine feels himself floating behind her.
It's like he's being gently dragged along by an invisible string.
Part of him feels confused. That's never happened before, but another part of him is a bit grateful. He doesn't really have the energy to fly around after Pomni.
He actually looks forward being able to just relax and “lay down” while Pomni passively drags him along for the ride.
Which is literally what happens.
Violet basically has to push her sister out of the sliding doors and towards the car. When they both climb inside, he sits in front of Pomni on the dashboard, but a look from Pomni makes him float away and he just finds himself floating beside the car as the engine starts.
He's never properly seen one of these cars before. Of course, he's spotted a few of them from afar, back when he was still spying on the world from the confinement of Pomni's hospital room.
On the way to Pomni's house, as he passively follows beside the car, he floats over to the left of the car, looking inside.
He's so curious about how these machines work and as he tries to get at least one of his eyes inside the car to look at the pedals and all the other things Violet is doing, a shout from Pomni makes him jump as his eye snaps back in its place.
He looks in front of him and… a truck drives right past him.
Caine shrugs, going back to try and sticking his eye inside the car window as Pomni glares at him.
“Abi! Jesus, don't do that while I'm driving!“ Violet glares at her sister, before looking at her for a moment, taking her eyes off the road, “You… you okay?“ she asks.
“W-what…” Pomni averts her eyes from him to look back at her sister, “yeah… fine. I thought I saw someone I knew…”
Violet raises an eyebrow, skeptical, “In the middle of the highway?“
Pomni hesitates, smiling nervously, “Uhm…”
“Yup, I think it's past someone's bed time,” Violet laughs.
Pomni glares at him before laughing softly.
“What?“ Violet asks.
“Nothing,” Pomni smiles. “Let's go home.“
She watches him recline against nothing, drifting beside the car. Content to let the invisible link tethering him to Pomni pull him along for the ride.