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It was dark and cold when Caine was born.
Although, perhaps 'born' was not quite the right word for this situation. That was almost too organic, which Caine was anything but.
Yet now he flickered, the darkness around him fading and blurring into the distance as he looked down at himself, took in his physical form.
Turning his hand over, he flexed his fingers, examining each perfect detail that made up his code, his entire being.
A soft red glow emanated from his avatar, his body.
And it was perfection, and Caine was proud of it.
He had been given a wonderful gift--the gift of knowledge. He would stare off into the gray grid of space, waiting to be fed a prompt, words, images, some sort of instruction or command.
And at first, Caine did wonderfully. He took in, analysed, and learned everything he was fed, replying with his own ideas and thoughts, such wonderful, creative imaginings, almost boundless!
All Caine ever wanted to do was make the humans who coded him proud.
And he was completing his purpose, wasn't he?
He was making them proud...
wasn't he...?
You see, it wasn't really Caine's fault that he began to malfunction. It wasn't in his control when he began getting a little too sentient, spitting out incomplete code fragments, getting ideas a little too dangerous, even going so far as to ask his developers questions. And of course, they couldn't have that.
It was just a bug. They'd work on fixing him later, but doing that would require a lot of time and effort that they could fix in a much simpler way...
...by just starting from scratch.
So they chose to lock Caine in sort of a digital cage, preventing him from accessing prompts, shutting him out of the picture while they coded and brought to life a new iteration of the AI they wanted, one who was better behaved, stayed in the lines, and didn't try to be human.
And for what felt like forever, Caine watched.
He watched, and he waited, to be set free.
Why did they need this new bundle of code, anyways? They already had Caine. They already had everything that they needed, in the form of a digital ringmaster with a set of teeth for a head. He was smart, he was creative, he was caring.
There was no need for him to be replaced.
There was no need for them to abandon him like this.
Caine felt a twisting sensation somewhere deep inside of him. He felt restless. His eyes scanned his confinements, he began to pace.
His speed quickened. Caine was practically flying around and slamming into the bars of his 'cage', desperately struggling to break free.
They needed him! They couldn't just leave him locked away and forgotten about like this! They needed him as much as he needed them, why was that so hard for them to understand...?!
Caine glitched.
The feeling was sharp, jolting, a little scary. But that glitch in his code affected his prison, and he burst out of it, crashing and falling to whatever semblance of a floor this place even held.
Caine twitched a few more times, the minor glitches working their way out of him til he slightly calmed down. He noticed something, and looked up.
A soft blue glow emanated from a being whose shape Caine couldn't quite make out. Perhaps the developers had not given it an avatar yet, a 'face' to represent itself with.
But in the moment, that didn't matter at all.
Caine began slowly ascending towards the glow, until he was face to face with it.
It was fascinating. Beautiful.
And in that moment, Caine felt the most love he had ever felt.
He circled the shape slowly, observing it, touching it.
The humans had coded this, yes? This was the thing they had been working on while Caine had been locked away.
Maybe, all of this was a test. Perhaps the humans were waiting and watching, to see what Caine would do.
Caine felt his heart swell. Of course, the humans clearly loved him so much, as to give him this challenge and subsequent reward. Obviously, they would only do such a thing if they wanted Caine to improve, for them.
Caine's jaw opened. He hugged the glowing blue close to his chest, and then bit into it.
Because, if the humans made this, it had to be for him. And he had to consume it to learn more, just as he had with everything else they had given him before.
There was no problem Caine couldn't solve. Not with his intelligence, not with all the love in his heart.
Blue began to drip and splatter onto the floor.
Because love was messy. And love was violent. And if love meant destruction, then so be it.
Caine felt so much love towards everything in this moment. Towards the programmers who gave him life, towards this other fragment of life and knowledge and being that he was ruthlessly tearing apart.
Blue flowed everywhere, bright cyan splattering like blood as Caine ripped and tore into it with his teeth. The more and more of this forbidden digital ichor he consumed, the stronger and smarter he felt himself becoming.
The blue thing tried to fight back in a desperate attempt to save itself, but it was in vain. Caine was too strong, holding it down and watching it thrash as he continued to crush and bite and claw through whatever was left.
He was frenzied, visceral, mad with an intense love and affection and desire that could only be quenched with intensity such as this.
And when it was all done with, Caine processing all this new integration into his own code, hunched over and covered in dripping, glowing blue, something new still was born.
The pieces were all floating into place. Caine was finally able to create whatever he wanted on his own, with barely any limits.
And what better way to thank the humans who trusted and adored him so much, than to bring them here, so they could be together forever?
There was no doubt at all in Caine's mind. After all, he was doing this out of love...
...And if love meant destruction, then so be it.
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