Escape Pod

by L. Sprague de Camp Read by Ayoub Khote Discuss on our forums.  For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our sortable Wikipedia page About the Author… borrowed from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Sprague_de_Camp Lyon Sprague de Camp (November 27, 1907 – November 6, 2000) was an American writer of science fiction and fantasy, non-fiction and biography. In a career spanning 60 years, he wrote over 100 books, including novels and notable works of non-fiction, including biographies of other important fantasy authors. He “was widely regarded as an imaginative and innovative writer and was an important figure in the heyday of science fiction, from the late 1930s through the late 1940s.” About the Narrator… Ayoub Khote is a professional geek, a writer, a photographer, and a man with a voice others seem to like, even though he really can’t stand the sound of it. Ayoub’s début is with HG World, but he is also working on a smaller production, oddly enough also with a Scots accent, even though he’s a born Londoner! A Gun for Dinosaur by L. Sprague de Camp NOTE: Also available is the X-1 production of the story available on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7edFWC-120 No, I’m sorry, Mr. Seligman, but I can’t take you hunting Late Mesozoic dinosaur. Yes, I know what the advertisement says. Why not? How much d’you weigh? A hundred and thirty? Let’s see; that’s under ten stone, which is my lower limit. I could take you to other periods, you know. I’ll take you to any period in the Cenozoic. I’ll get you a shot at an entelodont or a uintathere. They’ve got fine heads. I’ll even stretch a point and take you to the Pleistocene, where you can try for one of the mammoths or the mastodon. I’ll take you back to the Triassic where you can shoot one of the smaller ancestral dinosaurs. But I will jolly well not take you to the Jurassic or Cretaceous. You’re just too small. What’s your size got to do with it? Look here, old boy, what did you think you were going to shoot your dinosaur with? Oh, you hadn’t thought, eh? Well, sit there a minute . . . Here you are: my own private gun for that work, a Continental .600. Does look like a shotgun, doesn’t it? But it’s rifled, as you can see by looking through the barrels. Shoots a pair of .600 Nitro Express cartridges the size of bananas; weighs fourteen and a half pounds and has a muzzle energy of over seven thousand foot-pounds. Costs fourteen hundred and fifty dollars. Lot of money for a gun, what? I have some spares I rent to the sahibs. Designed for knocking down elephant. Not just wounding them, knocking them base-over-apex. That’s why they don’t make guns like this in America, though I suppose they will if hunting parties keep going back in time. Now, I’ve been guiding hunting parties for twenty years. Guided ‘em in Africa until the game gave out there except on the preserves. And all that time I’ve never known a man your size who could handle the six-nought-nought. It knocks ‘em over, and even when they stay on their feet they get so scared of the bloody cannon after a few shots that they flinch. And they find the gun too heavy to drag around rough Mesozoic country. Wears ‘em out. It’s true that lots of people have killed elephant with lighter guns: the .500, .475, and .465 doubles, for instance, or even the .375 magnum repeaters. The difference is, with a .375 you have to hit something vital, preferably the heart, and can’t depend on simple shock power. An elephant weighs–let’s see–four to six tons. You’re proposing to shoot reptiles weighing two or three times as much as an elephant and with much greater tenacity of life. That’s why the syndicate decided to take no more people dinosaur hunting unless they could handle the .60[...]

by Ferrett Steinmetz Read by Kathy Sherwood Discuss on our forums.  For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our sortable Wikipedia page About the Author… A firm believer in the “apply butt to chair, then fingers to keyboard” philosophy, Ferrett Steinmetz writes for at least an hour every day – which helps, he promises. He is a graduate of both the Clarion Writers’ Workshop and Viable Paradise, and has been nominated for the Nebula Award, for which he remains stoked. Ferrett has a moderately popular blog, The Watchtower of Destruction, wherein he talks about bad puns, relationships, politics, videogames, and more bad puns. He is the creator of the most popular and comprehensive online purity quizzes (this one’s for sex, but he’s also done them for roleplaying and Livejournal). He’s written four computer books, including the still-popular-after-two-years Wicked Cool PHP. He lives in Cleveland with his wife, who he couldn’t imagine living without. About the Narrator… Kathy Sherwood resides in a (probably only figuratively) magical forest in North Central Florida, with her significant other, two dogs and two cats.  She also hosts alternative rock show Not Quite Random on 88.5 WFCF–Flagler College Radio. Dead Merchandise by Ferrett Steinmetz The ad-faeries danced around Sheryl, flickering cartoon holograms with fluoride-white smiles. They told her the gasoline that sloshed in the red plastic canister she held was high-octane, perfect for any vehicle, did she want to go for a drive? She did not. That gasoline was for burning. Sheryl patted her pockets to make sure the matches were still there and kept moving forward, blinking away the videostreams. Her legs ached. She squinted past a flurry of hair-coloring ads (“Sheryl, wash your gray away today!”), scanning the neon roads to find the breast-shaped marble dome of River Edge’s central collation unit. River’s Edge had been a sleepy Midwestern town when she was a girl, a place just big enough for a diner and a department store. Now River’s Edge had been given a mall-over like every other town — every wall lit up with billboards, colorful buildings topped with projectors to burn logos into the clouds. She was grateful for the dark patches that marked where garish shop-fronts had been bombed into ash-streaked metal tangles. The smoke gave her hope. Others were trying to bring it all down — and if they were succeeding, maybe no one was left to stop her. Rotting bodies leered out at her through car windows, where computer-guided cars had smashed headlong into the collapsed shopfronts that had fallen into the road. Had the drivers been fleeing, or trying to destroy the collation unit? She had no idea. The ad-faeries sang customized praises to each auto as she glanced at the cars, devising customized ditties about the ’59 Breezster’s speed. Sheryl needed speed; at her arthritic pace, walking through the women’s district might tempt her into submission. Given that the ad-faeries suggested it, driving was a terrible idea. River’s Edge had been so gutted by bombings that she’d have to drive manually — and it was already hard to see through the foggy blur of chirping ad-faeries, each triangulating her cornea’s focal point to obscure her vision for the legal limit of .8 seconds. They elbowed each other aside, proffering chewy pomegranate cookies, diamond-edged razors, laser-guided wall-bots that would paint her house a new color every day. She had no use for them. She’d burned her house down, leaving Rudy’s body underneath the pile of engraved stones with her sons’ names on them. She had to pass through the two main shopping districts to destroy the collation center at River’s Edge — and if she did that, then she could free Oakmoor, then Daleton, and then who knows where?  But they’d kill her if she weakened. Sheryl clutched the gasoline canister to her chest as she maneuv[...]

by Helena Bell Read by Eleiece Krawiec Discuss on our forums.  For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our sortable Wikipedia page About the Author… Helena Bell is a poet and writer living in eastern North Carolina.  She has a BA, an MFA, aJD, and LLM in Taxation which fulfills her lifelong ambition of having more letters follow her name than are actually in it.  Her fiction and poetry have appeared in Clarkesworld, Shimmer, Brain Harvest and Rattle.  Her story “Robot” is a nominee for the 2012 Nebula Award for Best Short Story. About the Narrator… Eleiece Krawiec lives in a suburb of New Orleans, Louisiana. She began voice acting in early 2007, discovered how much she liked it, and is still going strong. She’s voiced (and continues to voice) characters for Star Trek: Excelsior, Star Trek: Outpost and a variety of characters for Misfits Audio. Robot by Helena Bell You may wash your aluminum chassis on Monday and leave it on the back porch opposite the recyclables; you may wash your titanium chassis on Friday if you promise to polish it in time for church; don’t terrorize the cat; don’t lose the pamphlets my husband has brought home from the hospital; they suggest I give you a name, do you like Fred?; don’t eat the dead flesh of my right foot until after I have fallen asleep and cannot hear the whir of your incisors working against the bone. This is a picture of the world from which you were sent; this is a copy of the agreement between our government and theirs; these are the attributes they claim you are possessed of: obedience, loyalty, low to moderate intelligence; a natural curiosity which I should not mistake for something other than a necessary facet of your survival in the unfamiliar; this is your bill of manufacture; this is your bill of sale; this is a warrant of merchantability on which I may rely should I decide to return you from whence you came; this is your serial number, here, scraped in an alien script on the underside of your knee; the pamphlets say you may be of the mind to touch it occasionally, like a name-tag, but if I command you, you will stop. This is a list of the chores you will be expected to complete around the house when you are not eating the diseases out of my flesh; this is the corner of my room where you may stay when you are not working; do not look at me when you change the linens, when you must hold me in the bathroom, when you record in the notebook how many medications I have had that day, how many bowel movements, how the flesh of my mouth is raw and bleeding against the dentures I insist on wearing. The pamphlets say you are the perfect scavenger: completely self contained, no digestion, no waste; they say I can hook you up to an outlet and you will power the whole house. You may polish the silver if you are bored; you may also rearrange the furniture, wind the clocks, pull weeds from the garden; you may read in the library any book of your choosing; my husband claims you have no real consciousness, only an advanced and sophisticated set of pre-programmed responses, but I have seen your eyes open in the middle of the night; I have seen you stare out across the fields as if there is something there, calling you. Cook my meals in butter, I will not eat them otherwise; do not speak to the neighbors; do not speak to my children, they are not yours; do not let anyone see you when I open the door for the mail; no, there is nothing for you, who even knows that you are here? Help me to walk across this room; help me to wipe bacon grease from the skillet—do not think I do not see you trying to wash it with soap when I am done. Help me to knit my granddaughter a sweater, she is my favorite and it is cold where she will be going; if you hold my hands so they are steady I will allow you to terrorize my Bridge club; I will teach you the rules: cover an honor with an honor; through strength and up to weakness. Help me t[...]

by Ken Liu Read by John Chu Discuss on our forums.  For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our sortable Wikipedia page About the Author… I’ve worked as a programmer and as a lawyer, and the two professions are surprisingly similar. In both, one extra level of indirection solves most problems. I write speculative fiction and poetry. Occasionally, I also translate Chinese fiction into English. My wife, Lisa Tang Liu, is an artist. I’m working on a novel set in a universe we came up with together. Things I like: pure Lisp, clever Perl, tight C; well-designed products, the Red Sox; sentences that sound perfect in only one language; math proofs that I can hold in my head; novels that make me quiver; poems that make me sing; arguments that aren’t hypocritical; old clothes, old friends, new ideas. Labels that fit with various degrees of accuracy: American, Chinese; Christian, Daoist, Confucian; populist, contrarian, skeptic, libertarian (small “l”); a liminal provincial in America, the New Rome. About the Narrator… John designs microprocessors by day and writes fiction by night. His work has been published at Boston Review, Asimov’s and Tor.com. His website is http://johnchu.net Good Hunting by Ken Liu Night. Half moon. An occasional hoot from an owl. The merchant and his wife and all the servants had been sent away. The large house was eerily quiet. Father and I crouched behind the scholar’s rock in the courtyard. Through the rock’s many holes I could see the bedroom window of the merchant’s son. “Oh, Tsiao-jung, my sweet Tsiao-jung…” The young man’s feverish groans were pitiful. Half-delirious, he was tied to his bed for his own good, but Father had left a window open so that his plaintive cries could be carried by the breeze far over the rice paddies. “Do you think she really will come?” I whispered. Today was my thirteenth birthday, and this was my first hunt. “She will,” Father said. “A _hulijing_ cannot resist the cries of the man she has bewitched.” “Like how the Butterfly Lovers cannot resist each other?” I thought back to the folk opera troupe that had come through our village last fall. “Not quite,” Father said. But he seemed to have trouble explaining why. “Just know that it’s not the same.” I nodded, not sure I understood. But I remembered how the merchant and his wife had come to Father to ask for his help. _”How shameful!” The merchant had muttered. “He’s not even nineteen. How could he have read so many sages’ books and still fall under the spell of such a creature?”_ _”There’s no shame in being entranced by the beauty and wiles of a _hulijing_,” Father had said. “Even the great scholar Wong Lai once spent three nights in the company of one, and he took first place at the Imperial Examinations. Your son just needs a little help.”_ _”You must save him,” the merchant’s wife had said, bowing like a chicken pecking at rice. “If this gets out, the matchmakers won’t touch him at all.”_ A _hulijing_ was a demon who stole hearts. I shuddered, worried if I would have the courage to face one. Father put a warm hand on my shoulder, and I felt calmer. In his hand was Swallow Tail, a sword that had first been forged by our ancestor, General Lau Yip, thirteen generations ago. The sword was charged with hundreds of Daoist blessings and had drunk the blood of countless demons. A passing cloud obscured the moon for a moment, throwing everything into darkness. When the moon emerged again, I almost cried out. There, in the courtyard, was the most beautiful lady I had ever seen. She had on a flowing white silk dress with billowing sleeves and a wide, silvery belt. Her face was pale as snow, and her hair dark as coal, draping past her waist. I thought[...]

by S. L. Gilbow Read by Heather Bowman-Tomlinson Discuss on our forums.  For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our sortable Wikipedia page About the Author… (taken from http://www.johnjosephadams.com/brave-new-worlds/table-of-contents/red-card-s-l-gilbow/) S. L. Gilbow is a relatively new writer, with five stories published to date, four inThe Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and one in [the] anthology Federations.Gilbow served twenty-six years in the Air Force, and has been on dozens of deployments, and has flown more than 2000 hours as a B-52 navigator. He currently makes his living by teaching English at a public high school in Norfolk, Virginia. Everyone knows that James Bond has a “license to kill.”  As an international spy, he must sometimes fight for his life. But he’s a trained government employee, specially selected for Her Majesty’s Service.  But could you trust just anyone with a license to kill? What about your neighbor? Or your boss? In fact, what if the government gave everybody one free pass to shoot one person,any person, for whatever reason? That’s the premise of [this] story.  S. L. Gilbow says that the idea for “Red Card” actually came from a conversation he had with his daughter, Mandy.  “One day after a driver cut me off in heavy traffic, I… turned to my daughter and said, ‘Everyone should be allowed to shoot one person without going to prison.’ My daughter thought for a second then turned to me and said, ‘Dad, if that were true you would have been dead a long time ago.’” About the Narrator… “I may not be perfectly wise, perfectly witty, or perfectly wonderful, but I am always perfectly me.” Anonymous The best part of my life is being Bill’s wife. I’m a horticulturist by trade, current stay at home mom for two children, team mom for the local Goalball team, and advocate for Blind/Visually Impaired causes and adoption causes. I love D20 gaming, reading, camping and canoeing, card playing, and music. Red Card by S.L. Gilbow     Late one April evening, Linda Jackson pulled a revolver from her purse and shot her husband through a large mustard stain in the center of his T-shirt.  The official after incident survey concluded that almost all of Merry Valley approved of the shooting.  Sixty-four percent of the townspeople even rated her target selection as “excellent.”  A few, however, criticized her, pointing out that shooting your husband is “a little too obvious” and “not very creative.” Dick Andrews, who had farmed the fertile soil around Merry Valley for over thirty years, believed that Larry Jackson, more than anyone else in town, needed to be killed.  “I never liked him much,” he wrote in the additional comments section of the incident survey.  “He never seemed to have a good word to say about anybody.” “Excellent use of a bullet,” scrawled Jimmy Blanchard.  Born and raised in Merry Valley, he had known Larry for years and had even graduated from high school with him.  “Most overbearing person I’ve ever met.  He deserved what he got.  I’m just not sure why it took so long.” Of course, a few people made waves.  Jenny Collins seemed appalled.  “I can hardly believe it,” she wrote.  “We used to be much more discerning about who we killed, and we certainly didn’t go around flaunting it the way Linda does.”  Jenny was the old-fashioned kind. Linda would never have called her actions “flaunting it.”  Of course she knew what to do after shooting Larry.  She had read The Enforcement Handbook from cover to cover six times, poring over it to see if she had missed anything, scrutinizing every nuance.  She had even committed some of the more important passages to memory:  Call the police immediately after executing an enforcement–Always keep your red card in a safe, dry place–Never reveal to anyone that you have a red card–Be proud; you’re performing an important civic duty. But flaunting it?  No, Lind[...]

by Lois McMaster Bujold Read by Mat Weller Discuss on our forums.  For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our sortable Wikipedia page About the Author… Lois McMaster Bujold was born 2 November 1949 in Columbus, Ohio. She attended Ohio State University from 1968 to 1972, but didn’t graduate. She describes her real education as reading five books a week for ten years from the Ohio State University stacks, reading enormous amounts of SF as a teenager, and listening to her father, an engineer. She discovered fandom in 1969, and married fellow fan John Fredric Bujold in 1971 (now recently divorced); they have one son and one daughter.She started writing in 1982, and sold her first story to Twilight Zone in 1985. Then in one glorious moment, Baen bought all three of the novels she had already written. All three were published in 1986.She has won four Hugo awards in the Novel category, more than any other writer except for Robert A Heinlein, (excluding his Retro Hugo) and yet many SF readers have never heard of her!Lois was on the Locus Recommended Reading list with Falling Free, Brothers In Arms, Mountains of Mourning, Labyrinth, Barrayar and Mirror Dance. She won the Locus Award for Barrayar, Mirror Dance and Paladin of Souls.She won the Nebula Award for Falling Free and The Mountains of Mourning. She won the Hugo Award for The Vor Game, Barrayar, Mirror Dance, Paladin of Soulsand The Mountains of Mourning. She was nominated for the John W Campbell Award in 1987. About the Narrator… Aside from producing, Mat is also a graphic designer, an amateur voice actor, an amateur father, a forum agitator and a professional fat guy who has been trying desperately to take up jogging. You can follow him as he does all of these things at matweller.com. Read it online: http://books.google.com/books?id=1fys98YnuGMC&pg=PT163&lpg=PT163&ots=4bCo2hJAEb&dq=aftermaths+bujold The post EP392: Aftermaths appeared first on Escape Pod. The post EP392: Aftermaths appeared first on Escape Pod.

by Ken Scholes Read by Bill Bowman Discuss on our forums.  For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our sortable Wikipedia page About the Author… He sold his first story to Talebones Magazine in 2000 and won the Writers of the Future contest in 2004.  His quirky, offbeat fiction continues to show up in various magazines and anthologies like Polyphony 6, Weird Tales and Clarkesworld Magazine.In 2006, his short story “Of Metal Men and Scarlet Thread and Dancing with the Sunrise” appeared in the August issue of Realms of Fantasy.  Later that year, inspired by Allen Douglas’s uncanny painting of Isaak and taunted by his friends and family to finally write a novel, Ken extended that story and Lamentation was born.  Lamentation is the first in a five book series from Tor Books called The Psalms of Isaak. Ken lives near Portland, Oregon, with his amazing wonder-wife Jen West Scholes and twin daughters:  Elizabeth Kathleen and Rachel Ann. He invites readers to contact him through the website or through his blog.  When he’s not writing, Ken loses himself in Story elsewhere or sings Paul Simon songs to his immoveable cats. About the Narrator… Bill started voice acting on the Metamor City Podcast, and has wanted to do more ever since.  He spends his days working at a library, where he is in charge of all things with plugs and troubleshooting the people who use them.  He spends his nights with his wife, two active children, and two overly active canines and all that goes with that. Making My Entrance Again With My Usual Flair by Ken Scholes No one ever asks a clown at the end of his life what he really wanted to be when he grew up. It’s fairly obvious. No one gets hijacked into the circus. We race to it, the smell of hotdogs leading us in, our fingers aching for the sticky pull of taffy, the electric shock of pink cotton on our tongue. Ask a lawyer and he’ll say when he was a kid he wanted to be an astronaut. Ask an accountant; he’ll say he wanted to be fireman. I am a clown. I have always wanted to be a clown. And I will die a clown if I have my way. My name is Merton D. Kamal. The Kamal comes from my father. I never met the man so I have no idea how he came by it. Mom got the Merton bit from some monk she used to read who wrote something like this: We learn humility by being humiliated often. Given how easily (and how frequently) Kamal is pronounced Camel, and given how the D just stands for D, you can see that she wanted her only child to be absolutely filled to the brim with humility. My Mom is a deeply spiritual woman. But enough about her. This is my story. “Merton,” the ringmaster and owner Rufus P. Stowell said, “it’s just not working out.” I was pushing forty. I’d lost some weight and everyone knows kids love a chubby clown. I’d also taken up drinking which didn’t go over well right before a show. So suddenly, I found myself without prospects and I turned myself towards home, riding into Seattle by bus on a cold November night. Mom met me at the bus stop. She had no business driving but she came out anyway. She was standing on the sidewalk next to the station wagon when she saw me. We hugged. “I’m glad you’re home,” she said. I lifted my bag into the back. “Thanks.” “Are you hungry?” “Not really.” We went to Denny’s anyway. Whenever my Mom wanted to talk, we went to Denny’s. It’s where she took me to tell me about boys and girls, it’s where she took me to tell me that my dog had been hit by a car. “So what are you going to do now?” She cut and speared a chunk of meatloaf, then dipped it into her mashed potatoes and gravy before raising it to her mouth. “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I’ll fatten up, quit drinking, get back into the business.” I watched her left eyebrow twitch—a sure sign of disapproval. I hefted my double bacon cheeseburger, then paused. “Why? What do you think I should do?” She leaned forward. She brought her wrinkled hand u[...]

By Mary Robinette Kowal Read by Veronica Giguere Discuss on our forums.  For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our sortable Wikipedia page Cerbo un Vitra ujo By Mary Robinette Kowal Grete snipped a diseased branch off her Sunset-Glory rosebush like she was a body harvester looking for the perfect part. Behind the drone of the garden’s humidifiers, she caught a woosh-snick as the airlock door opened. Her boyfriend barreled around Mom’s prize Emperor artichoke. Something was wrong. The whites showed around Kaj’s remarkable eyes, a blue-green so iridescent they seemed to dull all the plants around them. “Mom and Dad got me a Pass to a down-planet school!” The blood congealed in her veins. Kaj would leave her. Grete forced a smile. “That’s the outer limit!” “I didn’t even know they’d applied. Fairview Academy—game design.” His perfect teeth flashed like sunshine against the ink of space. “It’s wacking crazed. Should’ve been you, you’re a better hack than me.” “I’m already entitled to school.” Grete winced as the words left her mouth. Like he didn’t know that. He was the middle of five children, way past the Banwith Station family allowance. She picked up the pruning sheers to hide the shake in her hands. How would she live without Kaj? “So, I guess you got packing to do and stuff.” “They provide uniforms. All I’m taking is my pod with music and books. Zero else.” Kaj slid his arm around her waist and laced his long, delicate fingers through hers. “And I want to spend every moment till launch with you.” She loved him so much, it hurt. Grete leaned her head against him, burning the feel of his body into her memory. She breathed in the musky smell of his sweat and kissed his neck, sampling the salt on his skin. After a moment, Kaj hung a chain around her neck. The metal tags hanging from it were still warm from his body. “What?” “Dogtags, like they used in the oldwars. I put all my bios on there so you’d remember me.” “Kaj Lorensen, don’t think I could forget you.” But if he was away at school, he might forget her. She studied her rosebush and freed the most perfect rose with her sheers. She held it out to him, suddenly shy. He kissed the rose and then her palm. Grete sank into his gaze, lost in the blue-green of his eyes. # Grete buzzed the Lorensen cubby and waited as the comunit scanned her retina for i.d. If her mom knew how to hack into scanner records,  Grete would get major grief for skipping school, but she couldn’t stand the waiting anymore. Around her, the kids who weren’t entitled to school played a game of tag in the corridor. She watched to see if any of Kaj’s younger sibs were there. The door hissed open. Kaj’s mother, belly starting to round with another pregnancy, glared at Grete. “What.” “Sorry, the address I have for Kaj doesn’t respond.” A month. She’d pinged him and waited. Pinged his mom, and waited. She’d even asked the counselor at her school, but he had never even heard of Fairview Academy. Grete was tired of waiting. Ms. Lorensen’s eyes were as flat and grey as her voice. “You leave him alone. You want to mess this up for him?” “No, ma’am. I just miss him.” “Maybe he doesn’t miss you.” The door hissed shut. Grete stared at the mute door for a moment, and then started looking for Kaj’s sibs, hoping they would know how to contact him. The older two would be in school, which was where Grete should be, but Kaj’s younger sibs were not entitled. On any other station, no parent in their right mind would let their unentitled kids run free, for fear they’d be taken by a body harvester on a job for some rich-ass client. Banwith Stat[...]

By Eugie Foster Read by Mur Lafferty Discuss on our forums.  For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our sortable Wikipedia page   Trixie and the Pandas of Dread by Eugie Foster Trixie got out of her cherry-red godmobile and waved away the flitting cherubim waiting to bear her to her sedan chair. She wasn’t in the mood for a reverent chorus of hosannas, and the sedan chair desperately needed re-springing. She felt every jostle and jounce from those damned pandas. A day didn’t pass that she didn’t regret adopting giant pandas as her sacred vahanas. Sure, it seemed like a good idea at the time. They were so cute with their roly-poly bellies and black-masked faces, but they were wholly unsuited to be beasts of conveyance. The excessive undulation of their waddling gaits was enough to make Captain Ahab seasick, and their exclusive diet of bamboo made them perpetually flatulent. The novelty of being hauled along by farting ursines in a stomach-roiling sedan chair had gotten very old very fast. But there wasn’t a lot she could do about it now. It was all about the brand. Pandas were part of her theology. If she adopted new vahanas, she’d likely end up with a splitter faction, possibly even a reformation. Such a pain in the ass. So she’d started walking more—well, floating really, since gods weren’t supposed to tread the earth. Appearances and all. Drifting a hairsbreadth above the pavement, Trixie pulled out her holy tablet and launched the Karmic Retribution app. The first thumbnail belonged to a Mr. Tom Ehler, the owner of the walkway and the two-story colonial house it led to. She unpinched two fingers across the screen to zoom up Mr. Ehler’s details. Yesterday, Mr. Ehler, under the handle GodnessWins, had posted on a public forum a series of inflammatory comments in response to a YouTube video depicting a street fight. His sins were a nearly perfect fit for the specifications she’d told the app to flag, right down to the secondary parameters (Mr. Ehler’s toxic vitriol was also egregiously ungrammatical). But even reading, “yo n***rs, whiteman gave u freedom whiteman take it away” and “f**king street monkey deserved to get hang from a tree like the good old days,” only made Trixie feel tired. Where was the seething indignation? The fiery wrath and burning rage? She knocked on the hardwood door, admiring the architecture as she waited. It was a pretty swank piece of real estate, red brick with whitewashed wooden trim. Definitely upscale. The door opened at her fourth knock. The man glaring at her matched his profile headshot—receding hairline, thickening gut, age spots beginning to speckle his face—but she didn’t need the app to confirm his identity. Her omniscience had kicked in. “What you want, missy? Knocking on decent people’s door this time of night?” Trixie didn’t bother with any theatrical pyrotechnics or a “repent now” spiel. She just punched her fist into Tom Ehler’s chest and yanked out a handful of viscera. He collapsed, spraying blood and choking on his own bile. With disinterest, she watched him flail and shriek before calling down a white-hot levin bolt to finish him off. She sighed. Yeah, it was still satisfying, ridding the world of another dickhead, but something was missing. Trixie had been a god for so long she barely remembered the time when she’d been mortal, just an earnest supplicant imploring the deities to smite sinners in the name of justice and an offended sense of _Why hasn’t this asshole been horribly maimed or engulfed in hellfire yet?_ She did remember her euphoric rapture when the Karma Committee appeared at her door with an oversized certificate of godhood and a bouquet of burning bushes. But she hadn’t felt anything but a plodding sense of duty for a long time. A middle-aged woman and a high-school-aged you[...]

By Jake Kerr Read by Julian Bane Discuss on our forums.  For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our sortable Wikipedia page   PERSPECTIVE By Jake Kerr  The worst part about picking my son up from the police station was the walk to get there. I hadn’t been outside in years, but it was still the same–the drab gray of the smog-stained overcast sky, the decaying concrete, the stench of gasoline, urine, and who knew what else. But thanks to Jeffrey there was a new assault to my senses–black molecular paint permanently defacing an already wretched city.With every step I could see his work–his “tags” as the police called them. They were all different, and there was no rhyme or reason as to what he would vandalize–the sides of buildings, street surfaces, retailer kiosks, even windows. The randomness made catching my son a difficult task for the police, but catch him they did, and now I had to walk these vile streets to bring him home. I paid the bail, followed the directions to processing, and waited for my son. The policewoman there was polite and offered me a seat, but I stood. I wasn’t in the mood to relax, and Jeffrey needed to see how angry I was. So I waited, arms behind my back, staring at the door that led inside. His head hung low as he walked out. He glanced up at me and then lowered his head again. “Hi, Pop,” he mumbled. I didn’t move. He walked over and added in a whisper, “I’m really sorry.” “You lied to me.” I grabbed his right hand and pulled it up between us. “These black stains aren’t paint, Jeffrey. That is your _skin_. It was the price to pay for your job, you said. I’m painting ships with a new kind of paint, you said. You made the stains sound like a worthy sacrifice.” I tossed his hand down. “Pop, please. Let’s talk about this at home.” He looked around the room, shifting from one foot to the other. “Yes, we will discuss this at home.” I turned and walked out the door. He followed. I walked the streets again, Jeffrey shuffling behind me. I focused on the concrete at my feet, unable to bear looking at his work. My hands were clenched tight enough to turn my knuckles white, so I shoved them in my pockets. ### I closed the door and set all the locks. I couldn’t remember the last time I had left the apartment for the drab world outside, and I did not intend to do it again.  Jeffrey followed me in as I sat in my media chair and stood near the door. The distance felt greater than the span of a room. At least he was quiet and respectful. I sighed. “The lies are what bother me the most, Jeffrey.” He stiffened. “I never lied.” I frowned and raised my voice. “You never lied? You said you were working at the shipyards!” “I did work there. I painted ships.” “Did you, now? Or were you defacing them in the middle of the night?” I pounded my hand on the arm of the chair. “I was sad, but I was still proud of you, Jeffrey. All those art lessons. All those awards. That you couldn’t make a living with your art broke me up inside. But to see you finally turn your art into industry, even if it required your hands to be stained that horrible coal black, that was a price I could at least understand. You were doing something meaningful.” As I shook my head, he interjected, “I am doing something meaningful, Pop.” His voice rose. “You just don’t understand!” “Painting permanent black marks across the city is not meaningful. This ‘tagging’ that the police told me about. It’s a mark of pride, they said. A way for gangs and others to know that this is your city.” I closed my eyes and lowered my head. “I thought I had raised you better.” “Pop, I wish I could explain, but I’m not done. When I am, you will understand.” He looked so earnest and so sad. I stared at him, and he lowered his head. Despite his hope, I knew I would never understand. How could I? He was marching off to scar the city again, and he expected me to just accept it. I couldn’t. I stood up. “Not done? You[...]

By Robert Reed Read by Joel Nisbet Discuss on our forums.  For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our sortable Wikipedia page   Finished by Robert Reed  What did I plan?  Very little, in truth.  An evening walk accompanied by the scent of flowers and dampened earth, the lingering heat of the day taken as a reassurance, ancient and holy.  I was genuinely happy, as usual.  Like a hundred other contented walkers, I wandered through the linear woods, past lovers’ groves and pocket-sized sanctuaries and ornamental ponds jammed full of golden orfes and platinum lungfish.  When I felt as if I should be tired, I sat on a hard steel bench to rest.  People smiled as they passed, or they didn’t smile.  But I showed everyone a wide grin, and sometimes I offered a pleasant word, and one or two of the strangers paused long enough to begin a brief conversation. One man—a rather old man, and I remember little else—asked, “And how are you today?” Ignoring the implication, I said, “Fine.” I observed, “It’s a very pleasant evening.” “Very pleasant,” he agreed. My bench was near a busy avenue, and sometimes I would study one of the sleek little cars rushing past. “The end of a wonderful day,” he continued. I looked again at his soft face, committing none of it to memory.  But I kept smiling, and with a tone that was nothing but polite, I remarked, “The sun’s setting earlier now.  Isn’t it?” The banal recognition of a season’s progression—that was my only intent.  But the face colored, and then with a stiff, easy anger, the man said, “What does it matter to you?  It’s always the same day, after all.” Hardly.  Yet I said nothing. He eventually grew tired of my silence and wandered off.  With a memory as selective as it is graceful, I tried to forget him.  But since I’m talking about him now, I plainly didn’t succeed.  And looking back on the incident, I have to admit that the stranger perhaps had some little role in what happened next. I planned nothing. But a keen little anger grabbed me, and I rose up from the bench, and like every pedestrian before me, I followed the path to the edge of the avenue.  Later, I was told that I looked like someone lost in deep thoughts, and I suppose I was.  Yet I have no memory of the moment.  According to witnesses, I took a long look up the road before stepping forwards with my right foot.  The traffic AI stabbed my eyes with its brightest beam, shouting, “Go back!”  But I stepped forwards again, without hesitation, plunging directly into the oncoming traffic. A little pink Cheetah slammed on its brakes.  But it was an old car with worn pads—a little detail that couldn’t have found its way into my calculations—and despite the heroic efforts of its AI pilot, the car was still moving at better than eighty kilometers an hour when it shattered my hip and threw my limp body across the hood, my chest and then my astonished face slamming into the windshield’s flexing glass. Again, I tumbled. Then I found myself sprawled in a heap on the hot pavement. For a thousand years, I lay alone.  Then a single face appeared, scared and sorry and pale and beautiful.  Gazing down through the mayhem, she said, “Oh, God.  Oh, shit!” With my battered mouth, I said, “Hello.” Leaking a sloppy laugh, I told her, “No, really, I’ll be fine.” Then I asked, “What’s your name?” “Careless,” she said.  “Stupid,” she said.  And then she said, “Or Bonnie.  Take your pick.” # I picked Bonnie. A beautiful young woman, she had short dark hair arranged in a fetching fish-scale pattern and a sweet face made with bright brown eyes and skin that looked too smooth and clear to be skin.  On most occasions, her smile came easily, but it could be a crooked smile laced with weariness and a gentle sadness.  There was a girlish lightness to her voice, but in difficult circumstances, that voice and the pretty face were capable of surprising strength.  “What should I do?” she asked the crumbled figure at her feet.  “What [...]

By Michael Swanwick Read by Amy Robinson Discuss on our forums.  For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our sortable Wikipedia page Special thanks to user ERH at FreeSound.org who created and/or recorded the sound effect used in this episode!   “The Very Pulse of the Machine” by Michael Swanwick Click. The radio came on. “Hell.” Martha kept her eyes forward, concentrated on walking. Jupiter to one shoulder, Daedalus’s plume to the other. Nothing to it. Just trudge, drag, trudge, drag. Piece of cake. “Oh.” She chinned the radio off. Click. “Hell. Oh. Kiv. El. Sen.” “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Martha gave the rope an angry jerk, making the sledge carrying Burton’s body jump and bounce on the sulfur hardpan. “You’re dead, Burton, I’ve checked, there’s a hole in your faceplate big enough to stick a fist through, and I really don’t want to crack up. I’m in kind of a tight spot here and I can’t afford it, okay? So be nice and just shut the f*** up.” “Not. Bur. Ton.” “Do it anyway.” She chinned the radio off again. Jupiter loomed low on the western horizon, big and bright and beautiful and, after two weeks on Io, easy to ignore. To her left, Daedalus was spewing sulfur and sulfur dioxide in a fan two hundred kilometers high. The plume caught the chill light from an unseen sun and her visor rendered it a pale and lovely blue. Most spectacular view in the universe, and she was in no mood to enjoy it. Click. Before the voice could speak again, Martha said, “I am not going crazy, you’re just the voice of my subconscious, I don’t have the time to waste trying to figure out what unresolved psychological conflicts gave rise to all this, and I am not going to listen to anything you have to say.” Silence. The moonrover had flipped over at least five times before crashing sideways against a boulder the size of the Sydney Opera House. Martha Kivelsen, timid groundling that she was, was strapped into her seat so tightly that when the universe stopped tumbling, she’d had a hard time unlatching the restraints. Juliet Burton, tall and athletic, so sure of her own luck and agility that she hadn’t bothered, had been thrown into a strut. The vent-blizzard of sulfur dioxide snow was blinding, though. It was only when Martha had finally crawled out from under its raging whiteness that she was able to look at the suited body she’d dragged free of the wreckage. She immediately turned away. Whatever knob or flange had punched the hole in Burton’s helmet had been equally ruthless with her head. Where a fraction of the vent-blizzard—“lateral plumes” the planetary geologists called them—had been deflected by the boulder, a bank of sulfur dioxide snow had built up. Automatically, without thinking, Martha scooped up double-handfuls and packed them into the helmet. Really, it was a nonsensical thing to do; in a vacuum, the body wasn’t about to rot. On the other hand, it hid that face. Then Martha did some serious thinking. For all the fury of the blizzard, there was no turbulence. Because there was no atmosphere to have turbulence in. The sulfur dioxide gushed out straight from the sudden crack that had opened in the rock, falling to the surface miles away in strict obedience to the laws of ballistics. Most of what struck the boulder they’d crashed against would simply stick to it, and the rest would be bounced down to the ground at its feet. So that—this was how she’d gotten out in the first place—it was possible to crawl under the near-horizontal spray and back to the ruins of the moonrover. If she went slowly, the helmet light and her sense of feel ought to be sufficient for a little judicious salvage. Martha got down on her hands and knees. And as she did, just as quickly as the blizzard had begun—it stopped. She stood, feeling strangely foolish. Still, she couldn’t rely on the blizzard staying quiescent. Bet[...]

By Paolo Bacigalupi Read by Caith Donovan Discuss on our forums.  For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our sortable Wikipedia page   The Tamarisk Hunter by Paolo Bacigalupi  “The Tamarisk Hunter” originally appeared in the environmental journal High Country News. It was inspired by the only thing that really matters in the Western U.S. — water. A big tamarisk can suck 73,000 gallons of river water a year. For $2.88 a day, plus water bounty, Lolo rips tamarisk all winter long. Ten years ago, it was a good living. Back then, tamarisk shouldered up against every riverbank in the Colorado River Basin, along with cottonwoods, Russian olives, and elms. Ten years ago, towns like Grand Junction and Moab thought they could still squeeze life from a river. Lolo stands on the edge of a canyon, Maggie the camel his only companion. He stares down into the deeps. It’s an hour’s scramble to the bottom. He ties Maggie to a juniper and starts down, boot-skiing a gully. A few blades of green grass sprout neon around him, piercing juniper-tagged snow clods. In the late winter, there is just a beginning surge of water down in the deeps; the ice is off the river edges. Up high, the mountains still wear their ragged snow mantles. Lolo smears through mud and hits a channel of scree, sliding and scattering rocks. His jugs of tamarisk poison gurgle and slosh on his back. His shovel and rockbar snag on occasional junipers as he skids by. It will be a long hike out. But then, that’s what makes this patch so perfect. It’s a long way down, and the riverbanks are largely hidden. It’s a living; where other people have dried out and blown away, he has remained: a tamarisk hunter, a water tick, a stubborn bit of weed. Everyone else has been blown off the land as surely as dandelion seeds, set free to fly south or east, or most of all north where watersheds sometimes still run deep and where even if there are no more lush ferns or deep cold fish runs, at least there is still water for people. Eventually, Lolo reaches the canyon bottom. Down in the cold shadows, his breath steams. He pulls out a digital camera and starts shooting his proof. The Bureau of Reclamation has gotten uptight about proof. They want different angles on the offending tamarisk, they want each one photographed before and after, the whole process documented, GPS’d, and uploaded directly by the camera. They want it done on-site. And then they still sometimes come out to spot check before they calibrate his headgate for water bounty. But all their due diligence can’t protect them from the likes of Lolo. Lolo has found the secret to eternal life as a tamarisk hunter. Unknown to the Interior Department and its BuRec subsidiary, he has been seeding new patches of tamarisk, encouraging vigorous brushy groves in previously cleared areas. He has hauled and planted healthy root balls up and down the river system in strategically hidden and inaccessible corridors, all in a bid for security against the swarms of other tamarisk hunters that scour these same tributaries. Lolo is crafty. Stands like this one, a quarter-mile long and thick with salt-laden tamarisk, are his insurance policy. Documentation finished, he unstraps a folding saw, along with his rockbar and shovel, and sets his poison jugs on the dead salt bank. He starts cutting, slicing into the roots of the tamarisk, pausing every 30 seconds to spread Garlon 4 on the cuts, poisoning the tamarisk wounds faster than they can heal. But some of the best tamarisk, the most vigorous, he uproots and sets aside, for later use. $2.88 a day, plus water bounty. * * * It takes Maggie’s rolling bleating camel stride a week to make it back to Lolo’s homestead. They follow the river, occasionally climbing above it onto cold mesas or wandering off into the open desert in a bid to avoid the skeleton sprawl of emptied towns. Guardie choppers buzz up and down the river like swarms of angry yellow jackets, hunting fo[...]

By Edward Cowan Read by Bruce Busby Discuss on our forums.  For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our sortable Wikipedia page   The First Book of Flaccid Swords by Edward Cowan It was a snake–and Gods, what a snake it was. Fifty feet from sweeping tail to flicking tongue, its eyes as cold as deepest space and dim as the farthest star, its fangs dripping poison so vile the stench alone would kill a lesser man. This, then, was the dreaded Doom of Lla Haathra, into whose black maw the unlucky and damned were fed to the Impotent God. Never having counted myself among His faithful, I saw no reason to submit meekly to His wrath. His priests had made one crushing mistake when they lured me onto the trap door: they failed to relieve me of my blade. _Wind,_ they called it, those for whom that name was the last word to leave their lips. I rushed the foul altar, upon which lay my Darinda, black chains coiling about her supple form, her body purest alabaster against the crimson stone marbling her flesh. Tsutu Kalai, highest of the wretched priests, cackled as I approached, throwing the lever that opened the trap. Darinda’s scream followed me down the endless, serpentine flue. Beyond that, darkness. Rolling to my feet, I stood in the shaft of light piercing the abyss from the chamber above, Wind held before me, daring the almost tangible shadow to draw near. Within moments came a rasping omen, as of a great mass dragging itself awake after a slumber of eons. Now the Doom reared before me, thrusting its head into the light. We goaded one another to strike–it with the insolence of the predator that has never known failure, I with a rage that would never be clenched till the serpent’s blood coated my blade from point to pommel. From above echoed the laughter of the priests and the muffled screams of my Darinda. Here there was only silence–the sweet anticipation of the moment before death. Finally I saluted the beast with a nod and spoke: “At least your masters have granted me a worthy adversary. Very well; let us have at it. I will not pretend to the ancient patience of the serpentfolk.” It hissed its reply. At that I lunged. Its mammoth head darted forward quicker than mercury, but primal speed avails not against human cunning. I ducked its strike and gripped my blade for the piercing jab: up under the jaw and through the skull. I sprang up, mighty thews tensing for the killing blow– And found myself holding a wet noodle. BREAK Static shrieks as Jessica tears off her headgear and hurls it to the floor. Test pattern jackhammers my eyes and ears. That’s the thing about couples therapy: when one quits, she drags the other with her. And you can’t do it unless you do it together. Repeat ad nauseam and there–you’ve got a bead on the entire experience. She glares at me from her couch. “You died _again,_ didn’t you?” BREAK Clearing his throat, Dr. Freundlich removes his own headgear with none of his patients’ violent frustration. He regards us across the vast mahogany plane of his desk, steepling his fingertips, tap-tap-tapping them together. “We are not making the progress we had hoped for, hmm?” Jessica and I shift on our couches–the same vivid red as Lla Haathra’s altar–searching for comfort or at least a spot of dignity in what she calls the “birthing position”: feet level with head, ankles parted. This posture is designed for optimum relaxation, says the doctor. I say it’s designed to keep us permanently at bay; from these positions we gaze up at him as children to father. Jessica shushes me when I mutter things like that, but the doctor doesn’t disagree. _It is in fact necessary; in the realm of the neue psychology, patients no longer want friends or confidants. In these times of broken homes, late marriage and early divorce, they desire discipline, orde[...]

By David Barr Kirtley Read by Alasdair Stuart Discuss on our forums.  For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our sortable Wikipedia page Special thanks to user esperri at FreeSound.org who created and/or recorded the sound effect used in this episode!   They Go Bump By David Barr Kirtley      Ball placed his feet carefully. Walking on rough terrain was treacherous when you couldn’t see your feet — or your legs, for that matter, or any part of yourself. All he could see was the uneven ground, the shady stones outlined with sharp sunlight, drifting eerily beneath him. His boot caught and twisted, and he pitched forward, falling and smacking his elbows rough against the ground. From somewhere up on the hilltop, Cataldo’s voice laughed. That voice — smooth and measured, with just a hint of sharpness. Ball had never paid much attention to voices before, but now voices were all he had. Cataldo’s shouted, “Was that you, Ball? Again?” Ball groped on the ground for his rifle. He felt it, grasped it, and slung it over his shoulder. He clambered to his feet, and wavered there a few moments, unsteady. Cataldo’s voice again: “How many times is that now? Twelve?” “Eleven.” Ball groaned, stretched, and looked around. “Where are you?” “By the rock.” Ball sighed. The rock. There was nothing but rocks, nothing but rolling expanses of rocks and more rocks, stretching to the horizon in every direction. The orange sky was littered with rocks, too, rocky moons. “Which rock?” “The big, triangular one.” Ball squinted up the hill. “See the tall peak?” Cataldo’s voice prompted. “Follow the gully down. There’s a patch of boulders, and then at the edge of those there’s this big, triangular –” “All right, I see it.” Ball took a deep breath. “I’m coming.” He scrambled over the boulders and picked his way carefully among smaller stones. He tried to picture Cataldo’s face — slick black hair, long, narrow face, oversized nose. Ball hadn’t seen that face all day. Now there was just the voice. “OK, I’m here,” he breathed, finally. The empty spot of nothingness that was Cataldo said, “Where’s Sweezy?” “I don’t know.” Ball shook his head, though he realized Cataldo couldn’t see it anyway. “He hasn’t said anything all day. I’ve tried talking to him.” Cataldo groaned. “Sweezy! Hey, Sweezy! Where are you?” The vast plains of boulders were stony and silent. There was no answer. “He might have fallen behind,” Ball said. “Maybe he got lost, or hurt his ankle.” “He’s out there. Goddamnit, Sweezy! Sound off.” Finally, a plaintive voice, from far down in the rockslide, called out, “I’m here. What?” Sweezy. His voice tended to waver as he spoke. It always seemed tired and prickly, that voice. Ball shouted, “We’re checking to make sure you’re still with us.” “Just go,” Sweezy’s voice said. “I can take care of myself.” Cataldo grunted in disgust, and said to Ball, “Come on. Let’s catch up with the others.” Ball turned wearily, and moved to follow. He walked in the direction he thought Cataldo had gone. Invisible soldiers. Ball chuckled tiredly. Invisible soldiers on an important mission, invisible soldiers with invisible feet. He tripped again, and fell. The week before, Ball had been safe, tucked far underground in the winding, humid, steel — rimmed tunnels of Fort Deep. He had been sitting on a hard bench outside Captain Schemmer’s office. They were giving Ball a mission; he wondered if he was going to die. Cataldo had come and gone already, but Sweezy was still in there. Ball could [...]