“how’s my niece doing?” Dr. Herb Bryant asked on the phone.

“She’s fine. She’s at school,” Vera said. “That project you were working on, how’s the progress so far?”

“Due to our calculations, if indeed they prove to be accurate, the scanners finished last night,” Dr. Herb said.

“Scanning everything?”

“Everything, yes. I’m on my way to the lab right now,’ said Herb. He was doing 90 on the freeway with his Ford, overtaking a Nissan bakkie which its driver, this old white male, gave him a side glance of anger. “the reason why I asked about Sandra is because we included her to the scanner.”

“you did what?”

“calm down, Vera. You said it yourself that she’s fine; you saw her go to school this morning. The inclusion to the scanner didn’t harm her in any way,” Herb Bryant said.

“you mean to tell me that my daughter is out there—”

“the copy of your daughter, the replica. She’s not exactly your daughter per say.”

“…you mean to tell me that she’s out there in the world…alone?”

“No,” Dr. Herb said. He parked the Ford in the wilderness where the laboratory he shared with Dr. Weitz is hidden. It’s edifice was covered with branches and leaves and trunks, the type of stealthy only noticeable when the lab’s door is opened.

“we made a random selection for one of her schoolmates, and the scanning finished last night. So it’s only the two of them in the other earth,” Herb said on the phone. “that’s if the project worked.”

“why pick them?”

“to test if PLAN BXY also works on humans. When me and Weitz began working, our focal points were the galaxy and the earth itself. We spent the last decade trying to modify the inclusion of humans,” Herb said. He heard his sister’s sigh on the line; the harbinger of her bored reaction when he drowns her in his science talks coupled with jargon phrases.

Like back when he told her about PLAN BXY after the company he and his good friend Dr. Weitz worked for, Tecmex Inc. fired them for “inventions that may endanger the welfare of the society.”

The two doctors had built robots — black and white in colour— pandroids, they called them a partmenteu of Panda (black and white)and android. They had arms and a head but moved on wheels like bulldozers.

These robots could produce any weaponry attack, including a single missile from the spine which for its launch, the robot’s head jerks forward. The government was impressed so the Pandroids joined the country’s defence force.

More of these robots were manufactured. They were a huge success; some were made to serve as waiters in restaurants, some were created to be the police, like Robocop; those were called Skydroids because they were blue and black.

Smaller ones were made to play with kids: Pigdroids, pink and black in colour. As time went on, everybody needed these Androids. TecMex Inc. became a multi-billion enterprise by then.

Accountant androids, teacher androids, sex androids (these ones could stimulate sexual elation in a mechanical way. Don’t ask how.)