Glitch

A Human

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  As a child of a very poor family he was sold by his own parents to an underground facility to become a lab rat and there he stayed for a few years, training his body and mind only to be labeled as Project 304-v2. The facility's focus was to create the ultimate human, extremely strong, fast and agile, quick thinking and with very high level combat tactics. This was all, of course, illegal testing. Project 304-v2 was the second in line as his precursor, Project 304-v1, had passed away due to hypothermia from their bodily modifications.
  
  The boy went through only a few modifications at first. Amputating his arms and replacing them with new, cyber prosthetics came first. The artificial limbs accustomed well to his body and then came the legs. Project 304-v2 proved to be a possible success to the facility and as so, was given high priority in finishing his modifications and upgrades.
  
  
  
  It all came crashing down when his spine was replaced with a a new one and infused with an artificial system. While everything seemed to be working, the boy's remaining body functions had started to fail. Muscle twitching, rapid nutrient loss, unbearable headaches. Still, no one put much care into the remains of a human, the facility's focus was the cyborg in front of them, not the hurting boy. He went through another upgrade, one that would tell the system to overload his human senses and dull the pain. He also received a fiber suit that would push his cybernetic body to its limit, milk the most powerful punches, the fastest turns and the quickest thinking out of him. While his occasional twitching and the static in his voice remained,even after he received the nickname Glitch due to this, he was a success. The perfect combatant, an unstoppable force. He went through a couple of months without a single fail to his cyber limbs or his suit and was about to be proclaimed finished and sold off as a powerful bio weapon when the first memory loss happened. Glitch woke up screaming, unable to recognize the people around him, why he had machines where limbs should be and without a single clue who he himself was.
  
  He was placed back into quarantine and explained what was going on, but after this memory loss had happened again after a couple of days, no one cared to talk to the cyborg about his past. He would wake up with his project files on the bed desk instead. This continued for several weeks, until Glitch finally snapped, his constantly hurting head denying him the information he so desired had him horrified and confused and he screamed and screamed until his voice turned into a static laughter and the usual gentle blue light to his machinery turned a vicious bright green. The first time this had happened was in a training room, the cyborg destroyed the place within minutes and when the smoke finally started to fall and dissolve, the monster that stood in front of the surveillance cameras was no longer Project 304-v2 but a living mistake and a deadly predator.
  
  A guarding squad was sent in to confine the cyborg, however when they got in, the green light flickered and died out, replaced by the usual blue and Glitch fell to his knees and whispered soft apologies, over and over. He was sent for a check-up and it was found that the artificial system that was implanted into his spine months before had malfunctioned and contained a virus. To everyone's surprise, the system itself seemed to have its own mind. After going through scans for potential replacement, it was determined the spine along with the infected system would have to stay. Thorough the months, the infection had taken over Glitch's own spine and to fully replace it would mean the cyborg would no longer be able to move or die on the operating table and thus be useless for what the facility needed him for.
  
  
  
  It took only a few days for the malfunction to happen again and this time it had attacked Glitch's escorting personnel and left no one alive. After the incident, Glitch was proclaimed a work in progress again and labeled extremely dangerous. More testing was done and an upgrade was made to his machinery, one that would dull the artificial system's power and hopefully sustain the virus that lived in it.
  
  For some time, this had worked and Glitch seemed to function properly again, however the pain that was there ever since he received the system was now accompanied by violent, painful spasms whenever he tried to touch or re-wire his spine and there was a voice whispering at the back of his head, both when he slept or when he was awake. Virus may have been locked, but the cage was Glitch himself. The boy hardly slept and his only escape was blindly following the orders he was given and going through the insane number of tests that were made on him. Two months had passed until he snapped again, too tired to focus on keeping Virus at bay and too horrified of his own strength. This time he burnt down and destroyed a quarter of the entire building.
  
  This had finally been enough reason for the facility to put an end to developing him and Project 304-v2 was proclaimed insufficient, malfunctioning and a failure. Being as expensive as he was to build, Glitch was sold to underground buyers for a large price and functioned as a toy to whoever owned him at the time. Talked about as an object, rather than a human had its price on him and he blindly obeyed whatever was asked of him, most of the time he was too drugged, tied or caged and voicing any objections was futile. This went on for over a year, until he was finally too miserable, too lost and too tired of himself that the only release he could think of was death. However, the knife he decided to pierce his heart with only scraped his skin, the arm he was holding it with flying away from his chest and then the voice was back, angrily ringing through his ears. Not one without the other. You will keep me alive. Glitch made another attempt a couple days after that, but Virus had stopped him again. Unable to end it and displeased with his living conditions, he decided to run. For the first time in his life, he used his strength on his own accord and blasted a hole through the apartment he was locked in for so long and escaped the hell he was used to all his life.
  
  Freedom tasted bittersweet as he found out soon enough. Lacking memories from when he was a child and never being taught the human standards, living on the streets had proven to be more difficult than he thought. However, this new lifestyle gave him a reason to fight for survival and learn how to be less a machine and more a human.