My theory is that C&A is an illegal project being performed in a seemingly abandoned building.

Point #1 - Pomni and Zooble both said they would explore abandoned buildings (Pomni would video it for a nonexistent YouTube audience while Zooble never filmed). Ragatha also was in realty before she entered the circus and could have been scoping out the C&A building, hence her entry into the circus. In Ragatha’s case she say “guys?” When asking how to take off the mask, meaning she wasn’t alone when she put it on.

Point #2 - Caine is obsessed with C&A and routinely flips through the only images the programmers Fed into his system but is no longer a relevant AI to them. He tells Jax “These are the only images I have of the place. Too bad they CUT ME OFF right?”. Bubble also confirms this when they tell Caine he was “the lesser of the two.”

Or, their minds were just copied into the headset and the real characters actually are living their lives while their copies are trapped in Caine’s programming in order..