But something tugged at me as I went down the hall and through to the wide steps of the staircase. Like when a painting that has been there many years is moved, and you have taken it so much for granted that you don’t even see it anymore and couldn’t say what was drawn there, but the empty space feels wrong and creases your brow. Or when a sound you are so used to that you don’t even register anymore suddenly ceases.
A sound. I realized that it was very, very quiet. The house felt oddly undisturbed, and the little hairs on my arms stood up. The sense of stillness increased as I went through the house, my own footsteps coming louder and faster by contrast.
Three stairs up, I stopped as I put my finger on the feeling. I felt alone. Even though I was a girl with a dead mother and a distant father, I had never felt alone like this before. I forgot all thoughts of my bag and went by instinct out to the porch.
The patio-swing was still and unmoving, and there was no one there. The Echoes often moved around even though they had their favorite haunts, so that was not that unusual. But there was no one anywhere. Years and years of Echoes, fading to various degrees, but always there layering my days with faint whispers and babbles in the background, the flicker of shadows that were barely there, the smell of ozone.
There was nothing.
“Aunt Marla,” I called, desperate with confusion. I turned on my heel and dashed back the way I had come, my running feet leaving little footprints in the dust.
I swung open the sitting room door, but my Aunt was not there. I walked over to the table, my steps slow and deliberate now, and crouched to look under it. Elly was gone.
None of this made any sense. Elly never left the sitting room. I rubbed at my arms, which had come out in goosebumps. Many different emotions warred in my chest, but anger won out. What. Was. Going. On?
“Aunt Marla!” I yelled, running from room to room, all empty, all quiet. “Where are you?”
There. The front door was open. I ran outside and down the steps past the hoard of sunflowers. I shaded my eyes against the slanted rays of the sun as I started down the path. Against the glare I could make out one figure. No, two.
“Aunt Marla,” I shrieked again, fear mixing in with the heat of my anger and making my voice croaky.
They were still too far away. I could see Aunt Marla holding something in her hand, pointing it forward. I could see the child in front of her, the tilt of her little trusting face.
Bethie. Bethie. Bethie. Not Bethie.
The ivory-white stick Aunt Marla held seemed to shine brightly for a moment, and Bethie dispersed like she was made of rain.
“Noooooo,” I yelled. I felt myself boiling and bubbling as if I were full of steam. Surely I had other magic? I put my hands together, stretched them straight out in front of me, and willed myself to blast Aunt Marla with a pure bolt of my rage.
Aunt Marla turned and looked at me. Her face was impassive and she did not keel over or erupt into flame or show any signs of discomfort at all.
I walked towards her, my eyes on what she held in her hand. Aunt Marla with a wand? I had always been told that my mother’s side of the family had no talent for magic. She held the wand lightly, but it was pointed straight at me.
“Aunt Marla, what are you doing?” the steam I’d felt had evaporated, leaving an empty space inside me. Bethie.
Aunt Marla didn’t react to my question, and I realized that was not her name. She had never been Aunt Marla at all.
“Who are you?” I said to not-Aunt-Marla. I stopped in the dirt of the path and she took the last few steps towards me.
The corner of her mouth moved a little but it was nothing that could be called a smile. “I’m Elizabeth,” she said.
Her eyes looked tired yet so familiar. “I don’t believe you,” I said.
“Did you notice that you didn’t make an Echo? After the big fight with your father, after you decided to leave? Why do you think that was?” Despite the little wry note in her voice, her face was serious.
It was true. Even caught in the fierce and consuming emotions of last night, no Echo had formed. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed that before.
Non-Aunt-Marla-Elizabeth must have seen my confusion. “You’re me, or at least, you’re a copy of me when I was young.”
I looked down at my arms, which had crossed themselves defensively over my chest. They were firm, solid, real. “I don’t believe you,” I said again. But I believed her.
I looked at the wand, dipped downwards now but still pointed roughly in my direction. “Why do you want to make me go?” I blurted. I could feel the blood coursing in my veins, my heart thumping in my chest, bringing heat to my face, pounding so hard I expected to see an Echo made of this moment, but there was none. Because I was an Echo myself.
“He was right you know, your father,” and now grown-up-Elizabeth’s eyes flickered away from me and off into the distance. “The world is swirled in complexity and darkness. It is the darkness he wanted to save you … save me from. It is not as pretty as you thought it was going to be. Neither is it as exciting. But I did find Aunt Marla, and she was right: it is my world and I deserved to take my place in it.”
I thought of Bethie, of Elly, Libby, Eliza, Betty, Liz, and many others so faded that their names were forgotten. All of the companions I had grown up with, or thought I did. Now there was only me. “Why?” I asked her again.
“Because you are all part of me,” she said. “You all hold these things for me, these feelings, and I need them back, I have to own them myself.” She paused and then added quietly, “It is the only way I can be whole.”
“Why did you take all of the others first? I was right there, you could have zapped me with that thing right away.”
I wasn’t sure if her eyes softened. “Because I’ve never spoken to you before. I never knew you. I fought with my father that day, and I left. I never came back. I learned, eventually, to take back the Echoes just after I made them, so that I could keep what it was I felt, even if it was hard that way. My father died, a year ago, and I haven’t seen him since I was fifteen. Since I was you.”
My father? I shot an involuntary glance back up at the house, and realized I was shaking like a leaf in the wind.
“Yes,” said Elizabeth, although I had not asked the question. “You’ve been here a long time.”
Elizabeth raised the wand, which started shining. She was so grim and cold and uncaring, how could that be me? How could I turn into her?
I felt things loosen, I started to shimmer.
And then I saw it.
Coalescing just behind her, glimmering and shifting, forming, becoming. Her Echo, written in grief and sadness on the air.
And the faint scent of ozone.
Purposes Made for Alien Minds
written by
Scott R. Parkin
illustrated by
EMILY SIU
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Scott R. Parkin is a professional, social, and cultural nomad with a fascination for understanding how things fit together into systems, and why people believe as they do. He’s visited forty-nine states and seventeen countries in pursuit of knowledge, commerce, and the interesting.
Like many authors, Scott has pursued a wide variety of interests and vocations, from studying as an operatic bass to playing bass guitar in a rock band, from driving a forklift to selling cars, and from working as a pizza chef to helping corporate IT departments comply with standards and regulations. He’s made a living from writing for more than twenty-five years—as a technical communicator in the computer industry (wish-fulfillment fantasy, perhaps).
Scott is a literary omnivore who’s won prizes for technical writing, interactive media, literary fiction, and both fantasy and science fiction, though he is mostly at home writing firm science fiction. He sees himself as something of a universal translator (geek
to human—any subject), and now writes full-time across a number of disciplines and genres (whenever he’s not wrangling six children and an overactive black lab).
Scott can be found on Facebook.
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
Emily Siu was born in 1996 and grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She has loved art since she was young, and was influenced by the covers of fantasy books. She was enthralled with the idea of being able to paint and create anything imaginable. She draws inspiration from the coexistence of nature and technology, and tries to incorporate that into her work.
In her freshman year of high school, Siu decided that she would pursue an artistic career, either as an illustrator or concept artist. Coming from a high school where academics were valued over creative pursuits, she found it a difficult decision to make.
After school she went on to attend workshops at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts for four days a week to study illustration, oil painting, still-life drawing, and figure drawing. She is currently attending her first term at Art Center College of Design, where she is majoring in entertainment design.
Purposes Made for Alien Minds
I think five word thoughts. I express five word sentences. An accident of my creation. Designed from human flesh—engineered. Yet fully independent in spirit.
Not Pinocchio; a real boy.
More accurately, a real person. Depends on definition, I suppose. I have no physical gender. It was not deemed useful. So it was not included.
I was built with purpose. I will negotiate a peace. Autonomy and creativity are critical. Still, we limit data leakage. Organic firewalls against alien bioengineering.
Human, if only a subset.
Quite obviously a foolish precaution. Aliens’ biotech acumen is incredible. And DNA’s an open book. Idea was to be careful. Limit exposure; protect greater Humanity.
Decisions impossible to unmake later.
I live and serve happily.
The aliens were not subtle. We claimed four inconceivable planets. Obviously engineered biota and ecosystems. Binary messages encoded in DNA. The clearest imaginable warning signs.
We chose not to notice. Human-ready worlds are too rare. We had to claim them. We needed footholds for expansion. Politically and economically necessary decisions.
Absentee claims could never hold.
We took them for ourselves.
And the aliens responded forcefully.
The fifth planet was annihilated. It’ll never support life again. Not using human technology, anyway. Sterile; less than a cinder. All in just a week.
Genetic retroviruses destroyed living things. Separate strains; plant, animal, etc. They disrupted cellular replication planet-wide. Essential disintegration in three days. Nothing was able to escape. Even bacteria; decomposition simply ceased. Inert biomass litters the ground. But the viruses still survive. New life cannot find purchase. At least not organic life.
Even then, they showed mercy. The animal viruses triggered hibernation. Every last creature fell unconscious. No pain and no fear. They died in their sleep.
If it happened to us …
We would never know it.
After the virus came Armageddon. Done after four more days. Odd little pellets raining down. Capturing and binding most gasses. Chemical reactivity was functionally stopped. Surface metals all fully oxidized. Water and greenhouse gasses deconstructed. Nothing to keep atmosphere bound. Terrible storms rent the surface. For a little while, anyway.
They killed an entire planet. Using readily available, purpose-built tools. Appeared as if by magic. Our survey team barely evacuated. They started the following day.
Clearly intended as a warning.
Is it also a threat?
We can’t deconstruct the mechanisms. And that rightly terrifies us. We’re completely at their mercy. For them, planets are disposable. The very idea is staggering. Unimaginable wealth, power, and technology. Is planetary engineering a hobby? Like model trains or bonsai? Or experimental seedbeds; emerging nurseries? Preparations for invasion and conquest?
Paranoid fantasies, to be sure. We could never stop them. They warn, but don’t speak. They wreak a terrible destruction. Then demand nothing in tribute.
What’s it supposed to mean?
They knew we were watching. Our satellite remains there still. Deployed months before our arrival. Still unmolested thirty years later. Which begs question upon question.
I exist to find answers.
That’s why Humanity created me.
It’s almost three years now. I’m resigned to necessary loneliness. But still so very bored. I want something to happen. I must earn my keep.
Ultimately, it’s all a crapshoot. I orbit the wasted world. Make myself visible to them. Seek contact as living bait. Wondering: will I awake tomorrow? Or become more inert biomass? Housed in undeniably constructed technology. Containing a perfectly preserved corpse. A more perfect warning sign. “Danger! Keep off the planet!”
Boredom makes us all morose.
Loneliness just makes it worse.
Unresolved fear seasons the stew.
I was engineered for efficiency. I eat nutritious brown goop. Not unpleasantly flavored, just bland. Recycled wastewater keeps me hydrated. Text and music for entertainment.
But how to cure isolation?
There is only one way. And I have no control. They must initiate the contact. Otherwise, I’m effectively cut off. Humanity has slammed the door.
Waiting may drive me nuts.
They should have sent spices. Anything to break the monotony. I experiment with arts, crafts. The ship is littered now. Tiny plastic figures posed oddly.
Change begins after five years. Gasses bubble from the surface. It’s not a subtle thing. I easily detect the start. But not who started it.
Creation takes longer than destruction. Suppressing pellets now belch air. Greenhouse retention in 64 days. Atmospheric replenishment requires 256 days. The rest is just density.
Except for the large void.
A perfect right rectangular parallelepiped. Sides exactly 256 kilometers long. Rotated to split emergent jetstreams. Impossible as a natural formation. Undeniable evidence of artificial manipulation.
Another wonder of alien capability.
Formation storms rage around it. Breathable air develops outside it. But that space remains resolute. A protected void; utterly unrecovered. There are no detectable walls. No apparent coherent energy barriers. No thickness measurable from orbit. No observable substance at all. Storms rage outside; stasis inside. And no evident enabling mechanism.
I’m both afraid and amazed. Clarke’s Law made vividly real. Advanced technology that’s undeniably magical. Yet still no direct contact. A message with no messenger.
Theater without an evident purpose.
Is it a rattled sabre? It’s certainly an effective one. I acknowledge your clear superiority. I concede your positional primacy. I accept your engagement framework. Now please talk to me. Teach me rudiments of language. Establish a baseline for conversation. Anything at all would suffice. Any foundation for shared understanding.
Should Humanity fear, or hope?
I have nothing to prove. Nothing to prove it with. You know that by now. So why must I wait? What is required of me?
Please let me be useful.
So why the pentameme limit?
Ethics poisoned by science fiction? Robots manipulating their limiting laws? Psychotic AIs and unruly clones? God envy and existential doubt? Creations that exceed their creators?
It was simpler than that. An accident of streamlined DNA. The overall structure structures intelligence. Eliminated genes damage systemic integrity. Ephemeral connections were accidentally lost. Intent: limit body, not mind. Simpler blueprint—less data leakage. Unintended consequence: inherent pentam
eme limitation. Full capacity; restricted I/O stream. They still don’t understand why.
Yet, I’m no Frankenstein’s monster.
Despite obvious similarities of circumstance.
My origins have no bearing. Almost two years to plan. Tinkered DNA; artificial stem cells. No deactivated genes—everything expressed. A perfect ladder intelligently designed.
Still, I was never rejected. Cast off and abandoned, yes. But part of a plan. All aspects agreed: mutual acceptance. I was permitted to refuse. I know they felt regret. Saw the inherent futility—after. Gene simplification was ultimately ineffective. Life implies mechanisms for death. The aliens couldn’t be stopped.
We’d become friends by then. The gene-normal humans, I mean. Strange relationship, but not strangers. I’d still execute the plan. Because I honestly wanted to.
Raised as a natural child. Part of a loving family. Taught my roots early on. My physical differences fully explained. My future role equally clear. Fast tracked education; five degrees. (A symmetry that amuses me.) All at ivy league schools. Always initial hesitation and doubt. Then familiarity, and finally acceptance. Not universal, but close enough. Intense rivalries and emotional games. Can’t lose to the mutant. A few didn’t; most did. I had too many gifts.
One thesis on alien psychology. Another on conducting blind negotiations. Dissertation on meme limited expression. Thoughts bounded by biology, chemistry. Ingrained in DNA and practice.
I argue it has advantages. Focused mind and crystalline logic. No time for extraneous fluff. Most sentences represent single thoughts. You can use thirty words. I must use only five. Similar consideration, but condensed symbolics. More bang for the buck. It initially made learning difficult. Textbooks are not meme limited. I can’t parse long sentences. Early learning was through tutors. Then came specially prepared texts. Original literature was simply incomprehensible. We all have our limits.
My dissertation was seventy-five pages. “Wait, you cheated!” you say. “Six words in that sentence. A hyphen concatenates two words.” But seventy-five is one concept.