9XY151 tentatively edged one of its long, grasshopper-like legs through the edge of the lid of the rusted green dumpster. Only a careful observer (if there had been one, which of course there was not; that was the point) would have noticed. Even though the biomechanical creature’s leg was an Earth-meter long, it was the same color as the dumpster, a deliberate camouflage. If the Earthlings realized these aliens were among them, giant bugs roaming around and hiding in dumpsters, they would surely take steps to eliminate them . . . and that would never do.
The creature was safe for now, though. Its motion sensors had detected nothing in the almost-empty parking lot near the West Vancouver school for forty-two Earth-minutes, the requisite amount of time to wait before starting on the mission. And each mission was simple: find one human and neutralize it, then return to the dumpster.
As 9XY151 prepared its exoskeleton to drop to the pavement, an action to be mitigated by the creature’s proportionate wings, it heard a small sound from its biomech-clone, 9XY152. Although biomech units lasted long (the equivalent of three Earth-centuries), they did not last forever. 9XY151 would cease to function as soon as 9XY252 had completed its development process, as soon as it had offsprung. As per the standard protocols, the clone would stay with its iterator until it was fully trained and had attained full development. Right now it was testing all its systems, including those that determined sound and movement. 9XY151 heard a small rubbing sound as if the clone were brushing its wings together. Even as it telecommunicated the message “Stop! Quiet!” to the clone, 9XY151 logged awareness of a pleasant sensation. The sound of the wings was sibilant and rhythmic; it could almost have been part of what the Earthlings called nature.
Needless to say, although the Earthlings seemed to revere nature on one hand, as evidenced by many of their written and telecom recordings, they destroyed it at almost every turn. 9XY151 was part of an alien force (from Astroregion 9X) whose mission was to remove these parasites from this otherwise rich planet, which would furnish the biomech race with raw materials for its continued existence in perpetuity.
***
In a small black car in the almost-deserted school parking lot at dusk, Roberta Lee slept on. She had mistaken the time for pick up from her daughter’s choir practice by a full hour, and rather than doing a few errands and returning, she had decided she could really use a nap. Being the fifty-eight-year-old parent of a teenager was exhausting at the best of times. Today, it had been a long shift at the recycling depot, and Roberta’s limbs were tired and bruised. Hauling around other people’s discarded glass bottles was a thankless task, but at least it (barely) paid the bills, including choir fees.
If Roberta had looked across the lot, she would have seen an amazing sight: a giant grasshopper alien slowly emerging from a rusty green dumpster.
As it emerged, the edge of the lid dropped with a muted bang.
Roberta stretched to wakefulness and glanced at the clock. Still a quarter of an hour until choir practice ended. They had opened the door to the rehearsal room. Her daughter would be out soon enough, and Roberta could use the extra forty winks.
She drifted off again to uneasy dreams in which boxes of discarded bottles jostled her as if they were animate objects. She sighed and shifted her position in the driver’s seat of the Nissan Versa, with the window open to admit the soft late-summer air.
***
As 9XY151 unveiled its mechanical, multifaceted eye and did a quick 360, its sensors perceived a slight movement, 6.3 Earth-meters away. Well, that would make the mission easy, if that were a human waiting to be terminated. So much the better. 9XY151 logged the sensation of being drawn like a magnet to return to the melodious wing-rubbing of development-stage clone 9XY252.
Yes, what luck. Right here in the lot was the requisite prey. Only one ever at a time; that was the mission protocol. More would be risky. One alone was inevitably processed in the Earth-records (9XY151 was able to remote-scan the hospital files) as natural causes, typically “heart attack” or “stroke.”
Scuttling across the lot, 9XY151’s aural sensors picked up something unprecedented in its memory-banks. Earthlings had voices, yes, but what was this harmonious, melodious sound? Swooping and falling, rising to giddy heights, ululating in the breeze—this was unlike anything 9XY151 had ever heard. Each note trilled and blended and wavered. Paralyzed by the all-consuming task of decoding the sensation, 9XY151 experienced for the first and only time what could best be described (in Earth terms) as an epiphany.
This human was waiting for its developing clone (what did they call it? “offspring”). 9XY151 had never abandoned a mission—had never even hesitated to perform the necessary act of killing its human prey—and could feel something short-circuiting as it turned and headed back to the green dumpster.
***
Through the cracked edge of the dumpster lid, 9XY152 had observed the whole thing. Fully developed, it knew its next move. The protocol was labeled, for some reason that each biomech would only understand in its final moment, “Bittersweet.”
Quickly, efficiently, taking precisely the requisite number of Earth-minutes, the new grasshopper unit permanently disabled 9XY151.
9XY152 was offsprung.
Now its meter-long grasshopper-leg began to emerge from the rusty green dumpster.
But Roberta and her daughter were gone. Choir had ended early.
***
Deborah Blenkhorn is a writer and teacher living on Bowen Island in British Columbia. Her work fuses memoir and fiction and has appeared in such venues as Blank Spaces, Dreamers Creative Writing, and DarkWinter Literary Magazine.
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