"My name?"
"Yes."
"It's...X....7718."
She leaned forward toward me, eyes crinkled.
"Not THE X-7718?"
I hesitated for a moment, and nodded. The
woman behind the desk stared for a moment, and then suddenly became self-concious
and dropped her eyes. "You may proceed."
"Ma'am, don't you need to ask me for my password?"
She turned at me, and blinked twice, as if
awakening. "Oh, yes..."
I reached forward and typed my password into
the console. The green light flashed once; the signal to move on.
I guess that all would be considered weird,
if you didn't live in our cozy 23rd century. Home of convenience robots,
comfort, and luxury.
Oh, and WAR.
You see, the reason the woman at the archive
entrance was so surprised to hear my name is because I am IT. The creation
that brought this all upon us. I was created by a Thomas Melchior sometime
in the 21st century. He was a genius; however, I was his 7718th robot.
The others were scrapped because of various bugs. It took him sixty years
to perfect me.
When he finished, he was over one hundred
years old. And in order to complete me, he needed to feed all the information
about humans and their world into me. He calculated that this would take
at least half a century.
So Dr. Melchior buried me in a capsule,
setting up the program inside. When I was completed, I would stay in stasis
until activated.
All the robots made afterward were based off
me. Which brought upon the coming of the War. When countries made armies
of robots based on me it was only a matter of time.
I was discovered in the 22nd century by a
man named Almon Halfour. All I know of this is that he found me along with
five others who appeared dead. I was here at the archives to find out more
information on these others.
I walked down the blank, drab grey winding
hall to come to a stop in the main room. Here, computer consoles were attached
down the wall, where various people could do their research. I eyed the
rows and found number 7718. We don't really have to use our numbers, I
just like doing that.
Finding Almon Halfour's file, I skimmed down
it until I reached the area of his discovery of me.
"...until what made him famous came about.
Mr. Halfour came upon the robot model X-7718 after five children defeated
the wizard Stagmar in battle. However, these five children appeared dead
at the scene. Only three names are known positively: Michael Amra, Will
Stanton, and Bran Davies. The other two girls' names have been lost to
time, although many historians believe one of them was named Elena. These
children weilded some kind of power to defeat Stagmar. Details are unknown,
because Halfour's book about the subject was lost in a fire...."
Interesting! But I needed the final two names
to do an extensive research.
I type Elena into the Search box. I got a
result, but it was just finding the name in Almon Halfour's file. I tried
Alena. Nothing. Elana. No results!
I slammed my elbow on the keyboard in frustration.
It hit two letters on the left side of the board: A and Q. I shrugged and
pressed enter.
There were three results. Two were nothing
important, but the third...
It was a file on Aqurtha. In parentheses was
the name Alana.
The file said Alana was a girl born around
600 B.C who had control over Water and Earth who featured in a few folklore
tales. It also mentioned Saphyria, or Traci, another girl who had control
over two elements.
"Perfect."
I now knew what to search for. Opening up
the search box, I entered in the names; Will, Mike, Bran, Traci, and Alana.
There was one file that contained all those
names. The profile on a character very prominent in the fireside tales.
Ector, Lord of High Magic. In it each of the names were mentioned as being
people consultable to find more information on the mysterious Lord of High
Magic. But apparently, nobody put these two hints together.
At the bottom of Ector's file was a poem.
"When the Dark comes rising, six shall
turn it back.
Three from the circle, Three from the track.
Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone.
Five will remain, and one go alone.
Iron for the birthday, bronze carried long,
Wood from the burning, stone out of song,
Fire in the candlering, Water from the
thaw,
Six signs the circle, and the grail gone
before.
Fire on the mountain shall find the harp
of gold,
Played to wake the sleepers, oldest of
the old.
Power from the green witch lost beneath
the sea,
All shall find the light at last,
silver on the tree.
It has been told to me that these prophecies are to take on a new meaning.
One other then us Six will be the one on
the new quest. All I know is that he will be artificially made. What
will come of this, even I cannot forsee. However, I hope these words reach
the One's hands.
--Ector. "
Finally, the puzzle was in place! The reason
I had been created was in front of me. I was the artificially made One
Ector spoke of.
Iron, Bronze, Wood, Stone, Fire and Water
were the names of the Six upgrades of the robot X-9023, who created the
upgrades for himself but hid them when he decided they would be used for
war. The first was painfully clear. I had the Iron upgrade already. It
was given to me by Almon Halfour on his dying day. It was exactly 40 years
from the day I was discovered.
The rest would tell me how to find the upgrades
one by one.
A/N: Well, we've begun. ^__^
