Where a city once stood, now stands only the skeletons of magnificent skyscrapers, crawling with vines along them, monuments to the civilization that once had existed there. The sun rose in the sky above the desolate landscape below, as a woman climbed the steps of one of the massive buildings, carrying a large duffel bag. The woman stopped to rest on the fifty-third floor, taking a drink from a water canteen pulled from the bag. She continued up the stairs, accompanied by the echoes of her footsteps in the concrete stairwell. She stopped every few floors to look out the broken windows, at the ground far below. It was several hours later when she reached the top floor of the building, where the stairs ended. She looked around the floor, her hair blowing around her head, trying to find the way to the roof, when she spotted the door marked "Roof Access" in bolded red letters. She turned the knob to the door, only to find it locked. Trying to break through it with a desk, she threw it with all her strength against the door before giving up, only a few dents in the door to mark her efforts, and sinking into one of the worn and cracked plush chairs sitting amongst scattered papers blowing through the building, hanging her head down in her hands. The strong breeze blew a paper against her leg, where it caught, wrapped halfway around. She picked up the paper and looked at the top line. "Memo: Where is Carmen Sandiego? Your job is to find out! You're invited to the company team building exercise this weekend." She gave the paper a wan smile, and released it, watching it fly out the shattered window.
A noise caught her attention. At one of the broken windows was a metal beam, hanging down, hitting the frame of the broken window, being moved back and forth by the significant winds that blew at such heights. She stood up, grabbed her duffel bag, and determinedly faced the metal beam. She shouldered the large bag, and peeked her head through the demolished window. Outside, the winds were fierce, and buffeted her, like they were trying to pull her down. She shielded her eyes from the sun and her hair, and turned her head towards the roof. Seeing that it wouldn't be too far to climb, she adjusted the bag on her shoulder, and begun the ascent. As she climbed, the winds gusted, stronger than before, and she heard a loud grinding sound over the wind. She looked up to see the roof moving away from her, the beam grinding against it, attempting to free itself, before returning to its slow waving in the open air. She resumed her ascent to the roof, hand over hand, keeping all of her focus at the task. Finally, she reached the top of the building, pulled herself over, and lay on her back, catching her breath. She opened her duffle bag, took out some medical wrap for her lacerated hands, then shook her head, putting it back inside. Instead, she pulled out several metal objects, and a smaller, flat rectangular bag, setting it out. She assembled the metal pieces, constructed a medium sized solar panel array, then pulled from the smaller bag a laptop and a charging cord, plugged the laptop into the solar panel array, and crawled underneath an AC unit to get some rest.
When she awoke, it was dark, and a small light emanated from the laptop. Standing up and walking over to it, she opened it and pressed the power button. The laptop was worn, and one of the last of its kind. The screen had a spiderweb crack in the corner, and several of the keys were missing from the keyboard. Most notably worn was the left arrow button, which now only held a small rubber nub. She moused over the battery icon, and saw she had 20% charge. Satisfied, she opened up a folder on the desktop marked "For Charlie." Sifting through the folders, she picked one, and then scrolled through several icons, finally stopping on one she liked, and opened it up. A video began to play.
"Hello, Charlie, it's your big sister Teddy, and I... I don't really know why I made this video diary. Eh, I'll continue on, anyway. Sometimes our family can be difficult, there might be hard times, and there may be times when you don't think you can stand us any more, but just know, no matter what we say, we all love you. Good luck, Charlie." Charlie's finger pressed down on the nub of the left arrow key for a moment. "we all love you. Good luck, Charlie... we all love you. Good luck, Charlie."
A single tear fell from Charlie's eye. She closed the laptop, stood up, walked to the edge of the roof, hesitated, then stepped off. On the side of the laptop, a green LED glowed through the darkness, wavered, and then blinked out.