9.

Thora now knew for certain that she was alone in this silent jungle of a city. She had to get closer to somewhere people were, closer to seattle. This little droid could be her chance at finding someone. It seemed set on this idea of ‘scanning’, perhaps it could scan further than just the city scape, perhaps, if she was lucky, this little droid could use this military-looking equipment to find someone, or at least point her in the right direction. She looked again at the large screens hanging over a small, tidy workstation; clearly not a human area, it was too clean and devoid of mess and clutter. 

One of the remaining screens was displaying a number of letters, but even though they were broken up similar to the way words on a page might be broken up, Thora could not make any sense of them. The last screen, however, was currently playing an old re-run of an episode of a ‘tensies’ show, titles The Big Bang Theory. Well, that explained the way the droid spoke. Thora remembered watching it as a child, a hilarious comedy based on the idea that people with a higher intelligence level were considered socially awkward and unacceptable. It was in this moment, as Thora stood staring at the screen, that she remembered sitting on the floor in the living room of her family home, watching the delightfully intelligent characters chatter about comic books and computer games. And all of a sudden she remembered who she was. 

Born 2005, Thora Sandra Duncan, to parents Margaret Duncan and Peter Duncan in Seattle, Washington State, United States of America. She remembered her parents, their faces, the way they smelt and the way her mother used to nag her to pick up her socks that she had a bad habit of leaving all over the house. She remembered being an only child, and always feeling an aching loneliness and a need to surround herself with people. New faces entered her mind, her friends, half a dozen smiling faces that filled her with comfort and a warm feeling of acceptance. Thora began remembering a multitude of fragments, people, likes and dislikes as her entire life came flooding back.

The little robot had stopped it’s beeping a short while before Thora had began her memory rebuilding daydream. It watched her, wondering to itself perhaps what was going on. As Thora final began to remember where she was, she shook her head a little, her short brown hair falling over her eyes. She brushed her hair aside and let her eyes focus once more on the small droid. 

“I need to find my family,” she stammered quickly, moving toward the televisions and looking at the cables and buttons on the desk. Nothing made much sense to her. She looked to the robot. It let out a few sharp beeps before skimming quickly along the desk to the screen that showed the glowing green radar. It’s little blue lights seemed to flash as it sent a message to the radar system. The radar seemed to flicker for a moment, before all of a sudden several little dots started flashing. The screen beside the radar now read ‘Philadelphia, PA’.

“You’ve found people?” Thora stepped closer to the screen, hope gripping her, heart pounding. The robot did it’s nodding dance again, bouncing excitedly up and down. “Scanning...” Thora felt a slow and powerful surge of relief flow through her. 

But before the relief could settle, the middle screen started emitting a series of loud and terribly ear-splitting noises, some kind of alarm, Thora guessed. She turned her attention fully to the middle screen, stepping closer again, so close the edges of the screen blurred in her peripheral vision. 

“What? What’s happening?” Thora didn’t understand any of the words flashing upon the screen. 

NYC HBDFD PFD MLI T-2:00

Thora read the letters several times, still, they made no sense to her, it was some kind of program jargon, some kind of code. She looked at the small orb, whose lights were flashing haphazardly around it’s form. “What does it mean?” 

“Scanning failed. New York City has been determined for destruction. Prepare for demolition. Missile launch in T minus two minutes.”

Thora stopped, her heart seemed to begin beating more slowly, her brain trying to process the information being presented. She stared at the screen, her mouth opening and closing, no sound escaped her, her throat as disastrously silent as the city surrounding her.