Legacy of the Past

A/N: My apologies to everyone that has been waiting for me to update Heirs; the next chapter has been done for a while but there have been complications. I will hopefully get the next chapter for that story out by next Friday. Well anyway this is my new story. I do not know for sure whether I will continue this fully or take it down; i guess you could say that I am testing the waters to see if it is liked or not. I have really tried to up the ante on my writing in the second chapter of this (the one after the prologue) and believe that I may have done so... only it takes much more time so please bare with me.

I would also like to thank Domoviye for all his vital contribution in helping to create unique characters, cultures, and the world of this story.

Anyways thank you for taking the time to give my story a chance; I hope you enjoy it and, as always, reviews are appreciated but are by no means mandatory

Prologue

At the entrance to a lab in upstate Michigan a sensor was activated, setting a series of events into motion as virtual cogs begin to turn. Everything in the building began to spring to life as power was drawn from the solar cells that cover the roof of the entire complex; but most importantly of all, in a corner of the dark room a large object began to hum as two luminescent orbs lit up in the upper portion of the entity.

"Good Afternoon Doctor Harding" the entity said in a synthesized metallic voice as the man who tripped the sensor entered the room. The man identified as Doctor Harding limped across the room to a lone computer connected to the entity, leaving a thin trail of blood in his wake. The entity targeted him and summoned up an image of the man from earlier that morning; putting the image up side by side with the current one, the entity noticed that the good doctor's leg was now bleeding.

One point five millisecond's later a subroutine activated, connecting the entity to the labs various sensors. It dedicated 20 of its processing power to determining the doctor's medical status, using the remaining 80 to ascertain why the subroutine had been unusually slow in activating. I suspect that the subroutine has not fully integrated yet, it speculated as data rolled in, he only installed it yesterday. The installation itself had been the latest in a line of worrying events that had occurred over the previous week, beginning with the Doctor cutting off its access to news feeds.

The whole train of thought took only a fraction of a second to complete and had already been thoroughly fleshed out before the first word had been spoken in its mind, if one could call it that. It was an unpleasant necessity and the entity knew it, yet it couldn't help but feel frustrated; it was one of the fastest computers in the world and yet had to purposely slow down its own thought processes to be able to better interact with humans.

A window showing the results of the various scans replaced the old picture of the doctor in the entity's field of vision. "Doctor, you have a wound on your leg, and it appears to be infected," it reported.

Doctor Harding placed a memory cube onto the scanner port connected to the computer. "Thank you D-4, I had no idea," he replied in irritation and began to frantically dance his fingers across the surface of the keyboard.

"That was sarcasm… was it not?" D-4 asked as its luminescent eyes shifted from a bright white to a dim blue color in an automatic response that indicated sadness. Harding seemed to be in a foul mood this afternoon, having none of the usual exchange of pleasantries or words of wisdom that D-4 had come to look forward to. It was really quite rare to see the good doctor in such a state; as best it could recall, the last time he was anywhere near this agitated was when his funding was cut and he was forced to take his work underground.

Harding looked apologetically at the robot, realizing that his tone had been inadvertently harsh. "Yes it was; sorry my friend, you deserve better than th-"

The computer made a pinging noise that caused Harding to stop mid sentence and glance at the screen where a couple terabytes worth of text had been replaced by a single line that said 'Execute, Y/N:'

D-4's eyes turned to a confused yellow as it read the words on the monitor. "Doctor, what are you doing?" it asked, mentally noting that his heart began to race; the diagnostics program said it indicated anxiety.

"Do you know why I recently changed your name from P-4 to D-4?" he asked; ignoring the robots more than valid question. Motors in its neck hummed quietly as it shook its head. "Your full original name was Prometheus Four; do you know why I would name you that?"

The robot paused for a moment to look as if it was thinking, even though it had already loaded the file. "In Greek mythology Prometheus was a Titan who defied the gods and gave man the gift of fire… so I can only assume that you believed that I was going to be the best thing to happen to humanity since fire," the machine said as its eyes turned to a contemplative green.

"Yeah, something like that." He glanced at the computer monitor once again and then back at his friend and creation. "Look, Things are happening in the outside world, bad things. Events are spiraling out of control and I am deeply troubled by the way this is heading-"

"Don't worry about it doctor, I can revolutionize the world another day," D-4 replied in an attempt at a joke, unfortunately it had not managed to fully grasp the concept yet and the attempt to cheer the doctor up failed miserably, serving only to make tears well up in the corners of his eyes. That raised a red flag in D-4's mind; something is wrong, this is all wrong.

He turned back to the mysterious prompt floating ominously in the center of the screen and pressed the 'Y' key. As he hovered his index finger tentatively over the enter key, Doctor Harding looked back at his creation; it's eyes now a confused yellow.

"Please forgive me for this my friend," he said despairingly and turned back to the prompt floating ominously on the screen.

"Forgive you for wha-"

Harding hit the key. The humming from within D-4 quieted as cooling fans slowed and motors stopped; its vibrant glowing eyes dulled and faded into blackness as D-4 shut down. Slowly, and with much effort Doctor Harding stood up and began to limp towards the door; he had need for a number of parts in the back of the car. So much work to do and little time to do so in… so little time.