With the Thanatos name firmly in his mind, he placed one hand on the glass pad of the information kiosk and waited for the screen to change. ‘No results found.’ He thought of the original family. ‘No results found.’ Zara and Zoe. ‘No results found.’ It was as though they had been erased from Terra’s memory. The network supporting each information kiosk was supposed to be a vast database that chronicled the history of Terra. The only system he had seen that even remotely resembled Terra’s was one he found on Earth - the Internet. It was a crude and unrealized version of what he was used to in Terra.
He simplified his query. Zara. Immediately a list of results aggregated before his eyes. He bypassed the announcements and selected the social network, looking for faces to match his search. Four profiles with pictures populated the screen, one Elder, two younger girls who were born long after he was, and the fourth a young woman approximately his age, with sleek blonde hair and light eyes. Evan squinted and leaned in closer to the screen. There was something strange about the girl’s photo. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was but something about her face looked off. He looked to the other three photos to see if the same anomaly was present, but they each looked ordinary. He pinched and zoomed on the fourth Zara’s profile, her picture shrinking as a list of information about her materialized across the glass.
The girl’s surname caught his attention. Zara Terra. There wasn’t much information about her. She was generationally aged similar to him lived and in an outlying city. When he touched location for a map it appeared and zoomed directly onto a common building in Last City.
“Wait, what?” he gasped out loud. He looked at the girl’s photo again and studied her features. He couldn’t shake that there was something unnatural looking about the photo, something he could not comprehend. She was pretty and unsmiling, a far-off look in her eyes. Something about her face seemed oddly familiar to him, as though she were a face from a set of memories he had long since forgotten. She wasn’t one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting, nor was she anyone he immediately recognized. She didn’t even bear a resemblance to either Thea or Zoe, and yet she was the right age, had an unclassified family surname, and lived in Last City.
She couldn’t be a lost Thanatos daughter, he realized, a sting of defeat in his chest. Besides, what were the odds that both Thea Thanatos and her long-lost, presumed dead daughter had spent half a generation living in the same outlying city?
He swiped a finger in a downward motion across the glass surface and it dimmed at once, the anonymous blonde Zara swiped away. He reprimanded himself for thinking it would be so easy to find the answers to his questions. If the Stratons had gone through the effort of completely erasing all traces of the original family from the network then how could he expect to find any information on those who had the remotest possibility of being alive?
Evan took a seat on a nearby couch and sank in deep into the cushions. He disliked knowing he would have to sit around and wait for news, hoping that wherever Zoe and his sister were they were safe and would be returning soon. Then Terra as they knew it would be changed forever.
His eyes closed as his mind went to Zoe, seeing her lovely face as she smiled, the memory of her laughter ringing in his head. He hoped she wouldn’t change, that she would remain the same Zoe he met on Earth, plus a smile or two more. He drifted off into sleep as he remembered the way she held onto him as he took her to Paris, how the city lights reflected in her eyes, wide with amazement. She’d nearly left the world she grew up in without seeing everything it had to offer and now she was in another world, exploring the forgotten parts to find something she had no assurance existed. She had a strong constitution to take it all on faith, not knowing where the path would take her.
Who would Zoe be when all was said and done? The Queen of Terra? She knew little about its people or cities, the way it was governed and run. Most importantly the people didn’t know her. Would they accept her as one of their own? As their rightful Queen?
He awoke from a dream to the sound of small pinging. How long had he been asleep for? He felt more rested than he had before, sleep leaving his eyes and mind quickly as he sat upright in the seat. The pinging sounded again and he realized it was coming from his Communicator, tucked gently to his side in a pocket. He retrieved it and looked at the screen, his eyes growing at the message before him.
‘Look again.’
A flicker of light caught his attention and he looked up, noticing the glass panel of the information kiosk coming to life again, the light brightening the room. The picture of Zara Terra filled half the screen, another near identical photo materializing next to it. He stood and walked to the wall, carrying the Communicator with him.