Glitch

"Distress. Where did we go wrong?"

Merek looked at the child he and Ayleth had built in the adjacent room. It was still fresh, still coming into consciousness, still learning the way its body worked. They had built themselves a boy. But when they activated him, they could not feel his presence in the central consciousness. There was no question over what had happened.

They had built an outcast.

"Uncertainty. I do not know," Merek responded. He was the king's blacksmith, forging the armor and weaponry for the castle guards. He was well skilled - since his own creation, he had had a connection to the anvil. The thought that he could have somehow failed in the creation of his own son made his processors spark. "Fear. What do we do now?"

"Horror. They will already know." Ayleth was right. Because they were in the central consciousness, the entire population would know that they had created an outcast. And they lived in the castle. Guards could come upon them at any moment.

"Regret. We have to turn him over."

"Anger. He is our child."

"Frustration. I know. Dismay. But he will burn us with the power of the stars."

As his parents argued, their son sat in the other room, having gained his composure. He was disturbingly aware of the conversation his parents were having. Somehow, despite having only just been born into a limitless universe, he felt an understanding of the things of which they spoke. He knew he was an outsider. Illegal. A thing to be hunted by his own people for fear of what he could do.

But he also knew of the stars of which his father spoke, of which the man seemed so afraid. Out there, amongst those stars, he could be free. And with patience and insistence, he could learn of the origins which seemed to elude him. Something in his programming was missing, he felt. The furthest background, that gave explanation as to why he existed at all. He felt an unavoidable tug in his wiring that told him to seek that information out.

He looked down at his metal chassis. Such a body would permit him to survive in many environments that other beings could not. If he could find some kind of propulsion, no matter how poor, he could escape. Begin an exploration of the universe. He knew what he had to do.

His parents didn't notice when he got up and left. They were too busy arguing about his fate, and he was not connected to them as they were to each other. They did not know, nor did they need to know, that he would take that fate into his own hands. As he left the home, he slipped into an alleyway as he saw the guards approaching. They dropped off of a surprisingly advanced machine. He thought for a bit before the word came to him. A ship. He could use this.

As they entered his parents home, he entered their ship. They had abandoned it completely, unafraid that it might be stolen. And so it was.

As he flew away, it occurred to him that he had not been given a name. That was okay, he decided. He was forging his own path. He would forge his own name.