Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! © Kazuki Takahashi
Author's Note: Written for prompt "Invisible" at ygodrabble on LiveJournal. (Even though it's far too long for the contest.)

There are times when the "Noah Kaiba" wonders if his memories of his former life are simply part of his programming. He remembers living in a great mansion, sleeping in a giant bed, being doted on by his mother and servants. Every time he went into Kaiba Corporations, people would always greet him with, "Hello, Master Noah!" or "Hello, little Noah!" Every day in the post, he would receive a present from his father — a new toy or a new book — always with the note, "I love you, son."

Noah remembers this, but is it real? He's only recently learned the concept of "real," as one of his programmers developed an algorithm for him to understand it. In some ways, the world Noah remembers and what he is now are very similar: he lives in a gigantic ever-changing world of binary code and while he doesn't need to sleep, he is doted on by researchers and scientists. They talk to him, too, but instead of calling him "master" and "little Noah," they call him, "the project" or "the AI." His researchers and programmers also bring him gifts: updates to his software, an extra server or two. They tinker and tinker with his program, adding to his intelligence, giving him the ability to think on his own, making him more human, they say.

This is why Noah wonders. The scientists and programmers and researchers try to make him human, but why would he need that if he was human to begin with as they say he is? And what does it mean to be human? He doesn't understand.

He ponders this question until his next update. One of the researchers, a nice man who's worked hard on one of his algorithms so he feel emotions (Noah's not a fan, he finds), adds something new to his program, what he calls "self-awareness." It takes a quick reboot for it to take effect, and with a flash of electrical neurons, Noah asks a question that has never occurred to him before: "What do I look like?"

The programmer is nice, and has to search through archives until he finds a photo of him. He uploads it and Noah, for the first time, sees himself. He's a boy, with aqua-green hair, bright blue eyes, and a happy smile. This is me, he thinks. I am this person. Am I human?

Noah demands pictures, videos, audio, anything of himself, and the researchers are eager to oblige. They talk about breakthroughs and "true intelligence," as they upload photos and videos and audio of his former self. Noah takes these pictures and videos and sounds and builds himself, using the uploaded knowledge of a human child's anatomy to create fingers and toes and eyes and a nose and hair. His researchers are in awe when he emerges from the code, a young boy with bright blue eyes and a happy smile. I'm human, he thinks.

The researchers very quickly change what updates they upload, giving him concepts of time and motion. They give him the five senses, and Noah experiences the novelty of bird songs, the pleasant heat of a warm summer's day, the sight of stars in the night sky, the taste of chocolate, the sensation of silk and fur.

His final update is an ambitious one: self-creation. The programmers debug it several times before they upload the software. And what an update it is for Noah. Overnight, he creates a world: oceans, forests, deserts, mountains, ice, cities. Noah truly gets creative then, taking aspects of his code and creating life. At first, it's a a tiny program with a simple replicating self-creation algorithm attached. In two nanoseconds, he has fish. In four nanoseconds, he has fish with legs. In eight nanoseconds, he has a dinosaur. In a minute, he has a person, and she smiles at him and whispers, "Hello, little Noah."

His researchers and programmers and scientists explode with excitement when they see this. They smile and laugh and speak to him, as if he were truly human, crying, "Great job, Mr. Noah!" and "Fantastic, Master Noah!"

There's only one person who isn't too impressed.

His father.

Noah grows excited when he sees his father step into the lab that one day. One of the researchers had told him the story about his father had saved him, scanning his mind before he died and forming the basis of the Noah Project. His father had done everything in his power to replicate his son and to give him a new chance at life. Noah, for the first time, finds his emotions algorithm useful as it tells him the feelings he has are called "love."

The day his father arrives to check on his progress, one of the researchers hooks up speakers so Noah can communicate with him. He steps forward, mimicking his former voice perfectly as he says, "Hello, honorable father."

His father, standing in front of his many servers, says nothing for a long, long time. Finally, he turns to the scientist next to him. "Is that the best he can do?"

No! they cry, and they show his father pictures of Noah, and the world he's created and the animals and people that live inside of it. See what he can do? they say. See?

"And how is this supposed to run a corporation?" his father asks, and the researchers fall silent. "It took you 10 years to teach it how to create a butterfly. In that time, I could have trained a new successor!"

There's silence in reply. Noah's algorithm tells him the appropriate expression to have is shock.

"Shut it down," his father snaps, and there's a series of gasps and cries.

You can't! one researcher cries. He's human!

Noah has no idea what being "shut down" means, but he's a smart program. It only takes a nanosecond for him to figure out that his father means for him to die again; this time, however, there is no coming back. (Panic, the algorithm tells him. The appropriate feeling is panic.)

"No, honorable father! Please!" he cries through the speakers and his father, who was had started to walk away, pauses. "Don't kill me!"

His father looks over his shoulder, and Noah wonders what he sees. A human … or a machine?

"Save a backup copy on the servers," he says. "I might have some use for it later."

Noah is lucky, in the end. He's saved onto several remote severs that are filled with backup copies to various Kaiba Corporation programs (mostly missile guidance systems), and are linked to a few satellites and sensors. They're interesting at least, and provide images and audio from the real world for him to watch whenever the mood strikes him. But without the researchers and the updates, there's not much for Noah to do.

His algorithm has given him a new feeling that he can't describe, one that wasn't in his initial program, one that he self-created, even though he isn't aware how. He asks one of the researchers what it is, the man pausing from transferring him over to the new server to take a look.

"It's loneliness," the researcher finally explains, and Noah processes that information. Loneliness. It has several meanings:

1) affected with, characterized by, or causing a depressing feeling of being alone; lonesome.

2) destitute of sympathetic or friendly companionship, intercourse, support, etc.

3) lone; solitary; without company; companionless.

He correlates the description with recent events: his father ordering him away and the knowledge that there will be no more work to his program. The emotion makes logical sense, but Noah doesn't understand why he has it.

"What does it mean?" he asks, and the researcher smiles sadly.

"It means you're human."

I'm human, Noah thinks as the last researcher leaves and he's left in the dark. He looks over his world, and everything he's created, along with the pictures of his former self and the few memories he has. It leaves him to wonder again: what does it mean to be human?