Escape Pod

By Mark English Read by Dave Robison Discuss on our forums.  For a list of all Escape Pod stories by this author or narrator, visit our sortable Wikipedia page Special thanks to user Tomlija at FreeSound.org who created and/or recorded the sound effect used in this episode! About the author… Mark is an ex-rocket scientist with a doctorate in physics so has an unwitting talent for taking the magic out of twinkling stars, sunsets, colourful flames dancing in a roaring fire, and rainbows. His medium term aims are to introduce other fathers to the world of creative storytelling, and to find his feet with short story writing. This will involve him having to appreciate that what he sees as funny does not always accord with other people’s points of view. Christchurch, New Zealand has been his home for 10 years with all the ups and downs that entails.   Elias Smith and Jones By Mark English Every space in the four thousand seat lecture theatre was taken. Additional folk had snuck in to sit on the dark steps at the back. With everyone whispering discretely, the noise was deafening to the grizzled old-timer who stood leaning on the lecturn at the front—or it would have been except for the myPod player earbuds delivering their tinny frantic bluegrass tunes into his head. He chuckled to himself as he looked up at the wall of people in front of him. Political leaders, military leaders, space systems engineers; all desperate to hear the words of an aged ship’s monkey from the Frontier. All because he and his co-conspirators had blackmailed the solar system. Elias chuckled to himself again. Who would have figured things would have turned out so? He plucked the ear buds out. Instant silence. The university had scored a coup in convincing one of the Sundance gang to tell their tale since any spaceway robbers were generally executed. However the Sundance gang had a thirty year old secret, one that everyone wanted. With the removal of the first earbud old Elias had indicated he was ready to start; all the spectators held their breath. Elias turned his face up to the watchers, felt the bright lights warming his face, and smiled a toothy grin. “Howdy folks, I’m good an’ pleased to be here today, to see so many notables amongst you. Some I have met before.” A five star general shuffled uncomfortably in his seat as if the warm smile made him sweat—which it did. Elias continued in his soft southern-states patois. “We are gathered here today to hear a story, so let’s go back thirty years, back to when I was even more good lookin’. My partners and I had just obtained a large cargo of rare earth metals from an asteroid cargo waggon, and this had been mistak’n for a robbery. I guess after these years I gotta ‘fess up and say that it sure as hell was a robbery!” Elias leaned forward and grinned at the Sheriff-Admiral in the front row like he was about to lay a golden egg—which as history showed he had (in a manner of speaking). The Sheriff-Admiral returned a tight grimace filled with thirty years of difficult restraint. ### Elias Earnbuckle leaned on his broom next to Captain Miriam Smith and Jones-the-gun as they looked through the rear viewing port. The star field was tremendous with Sol out of view. The nearest asteroids shone starkly black and white, with sunlight flooding them edge-on. However it was Mars that held their attention. Or more correctly, it was the glow from the foldspace-prow of the rapidly approaching sheriff’s pursuit boat with Mars as a back-drop, that garnered their attention. Smith leaned her weight onto her left leg and crossed her arms. “That was a quick response.” Elias and Jones grunted in unison. Jones as man-at-arms was second in command and Elias, as general gopher and do-all, was the ship’s rat and the closest thing the gang had ever had to an engineer. Jones unconsciously mimicked his boss, placing his weight on his left leg and crossing his heavily muscled arms over a chest designed to awe folk [...]

By Shaenon Garrity Read by Nathaniel Lee Discuss on our forums.  For a list of all Escape Pod stories by this author or narrator, visit our sortable Wikipedia page Rated 13+ for rebellious vulgarity Punk Voyager By Shaenon K. Garrity Punk Voyager was built by punks.  They made it from beer cans, razors, safety pins, and a surfboard some D-bag had left on the beach. Also plutonium.  Where did they get plutonium?  Around.  f*** you. The punks who built Punk Voyager were Johnny Bonesaw, Johnny Razor, Mexican Johnny D-bag, Red Viscera, and some other guys.  No, asshole, nobody remembers what other guys.  They were f***ing wasted, these punks.  They’d been drinking on the San Diego beach all day and night, talking about making a run to Tijuana and then forgetting and punching each other.  They’d built a fire on the beach, and all night the fire went up and went down while the punks threw beer cans at the seagulls. Forget the s*** I just said, it wasn’t the punks who did it.  They were f***ing punks.  The hell they know about astro-engineering? Truth is that Punk Voyager was the strung-out masterpiece of Mexican Johnny D-bag’s girlfriend, Lacuna, who had a doctorate in structural engineering.  Before she burned out and ran for the coast, Lacuna was named Alice McGuire and built secret nuclear submarines for a government contractor in Ohio.  It sucked.  But that was where she got the skills to construct an unmanned deep-space probe.  Same principle, right?  Keep the radiation in and the water out.  Or the vacuum of space, whatever, it’s all the same s*** to an engineer. f*** that, it wasn’t really Lacuna’s baby.  It wasn’t her idea.  The idea was Red’s. “f***ing space,” he said that fateful night.  He was lying on his back looking up at space, is why he said it. “Hell yeah,” said Johnny Bonesaw. “s*** ain’t nothing but rocks and UFOs.” “Ain’t no such thing as a UFO.” “Like hell there ain’t,” said Red.  “CIA knows all about it.  Them and the astronauts.” Red was always saying that s***, though.  Everything was the CIA and the saucer people with that burnout. “That’s why they sent up that cigar-box spaceship with the porn in it,” said Red.  “They know there’s life up there.” “What spaceship?” said Johnny. “There’s no f***ing spaceship.” “He means the Voyager space probe,” said Lacuna. “Which is real, asshole.” Lacuna was pissing off everyone but Mexican Johnny D-bag with her knowing-s*** routine.  That and eating all the mushrooms and throwing them up in the ocean. “I want wine,” Johnny Razor yelled down the beach.  “Mexican wine. Weren’t we going to Tijuana?” “We already went,” yelled Mexican Johnny D-bag.  “We went without you.  We’re not even here.”  Then he laughed like a pinhead.  He was on some s***. “Keep it down,” snapped Lacuna.  “I’m telling these assholes about the space probe.” “f*** the space probe,” said Johnny Bonesaw. “The Voyager 1 space probe,” said Lacuna, “was launched into space to study the gas giants and then continue out beyond the solar system.” “No s***?” “Told you it was real,” said Red.  “But the thing is, the important thing is the messages it’s got in it.  For the space people.  Tell him about the messages.” Down the beach, Johnny Razor and Mexican Johnny D-bag started punching each other, mostly for something to do. “Okay, yeah.  Voyager carries a record of stuff from Earth for the aliens to find.” “And naked pictures.  They put in naked pictures of people.” “Yeah, whatever, naked pictures.  And photos, different languages, music, stuff like that.” “Music?” said Johnny Bonesaw. “What music?” said Red. “Um.” Lacuna chewed her lip, thinking.  “Beethoven, maybe.  Or Mozart.  You know, classical music.  And tribal stuff, like, from around the world.  And ‘Johnny B. Goode.’” Johnny Bonesaw and Red stared at her.  They stared up at space.  They stared back at her. “Chuck Berry?” [...]

By David Glen Larson Read by Mat Weller Discuss on our forums.  For a list of all Escape Pod stories by this author or narrator, visit our sortable Wikipedia page Rated 13+ for mild language Special thanks to users costaipsa, iankath, mario1298 and DJ Chronos at FreeSound.org who created and/or recorded the sound effects used in this episode! Concussion By David Glen Larson He scrambled from the fire that was snaking through the corridor when another explosion jolted the ship, and just like that he was dead again. A moment later he was someone else, gazing down with another’s eyes at the mangled green body he’d left behind. Never before had Tyler experienced such terror. Sure, he’d been afraid—afraid his knee would give out again, sidelining him for the big game; afraid he’d let down his teammates and make a fool of himself—but he’d never been terrified of being incinerated in an alien system countless light-years from the home world he was forced to flee. Not until now. Staring up at the night sky, the stars were dim under the glare of the stadium lights. Which star was theirs? He caught himself and shook his aching head. It was only a dream, after all. The frog people weren’t real. The doctor shined a penlight into each pupil. “Any headache, nausea, or dizziness?” “What do you think? I was just hit by a freight train.” Good old Number 32—the biggest, meanest linebacker in the NFL. “You may have a concussion.” Coach Landis spit tobacco juice on the grass only inches from Tyler’s head. “We’re down 22-27 in the fourth quarter with under a minute to go. Montoya’s out, Casper’s out, and now you’re saying I’m out my third string too? Uh-uh, Doc. I need Harden in the game.” “If he takes another hit—” “A few aches and pains go with the territory,” said the coach. “Forget aches and pains. I’m talking stroke or death. Those go with the territory?” “Ordinarily no, but this is the Super Bowl and I’m out of quarterbacks.” “I can play, Coach.” Tyler rolled onto his knees and wobbled to his feet with a groan. Lights flashed and popped behind his eyes, some internal wiring knocked loose, but he didn’t let on. “I’m fine.” Tyler teetered backward, but the coach steadied him, pretending to pat him on the back. “That a boy. See, Doc? It was just a tap.” “All right, but I’ll need to check his cognitive function after every play.” “Whatever you say,” said the coach. “I’m going to ask you to remember a list of five words. If you can’t repeat them back to me, you’re a NO-GO.” “Apple, wrench, sombrero, parrot, porcupine,” Tyler said with confidence. “But I didn’t give you the words yet.” “Sure you did. Last season against the Colts. It was the only time I played. Number 24 clocked me from behind on our 15.” “Well I’m glad to see your long-term memory isn’t impaired, but it’s your short-term memory that concerns me.” “Fine, but make it quick. I have a qweetah to win.” “Beg your pardon?” “I said, make it quick. I have a game to win.” # The clock was frozen with 54 seconds to go, a lifetime on the field. “This is it, Fellas. Whole country’s watching us. Hell, the whole world. Presidents, kings, grandmothers, your own mothers and kids, and God. Every one of ‘em watching to see if we have what it takes to dig deep and pull out a victory. Let’s not disappoint them.” They broke with a clap and toed the line of scrimmage, growling, snorting like racehorses waiting to spring from the gate. But the other side showed blitz. Even if there had been time for the coach to call a new play, they’d been having trouble with the headsets. The broadcast booth had complained about it all night. Something about atmospheric distortion. That left Tyler with only one option. He had to call an audible. But running through the plays in his head was like slogging through quicksand. He still heard the screams, the frog-peoples’ cries for help. Jagged lightning stabbed into his brain, and he clamped his eyes shut, trying to push them all away. He needed a play. And then he [...]

By Bud Sparhawk Read by Corson Bremer Discuss on our forums.  All stories by Bud Sparhawk   Scout By Bud Sparhawk Captain Sandels came in during prep.  “Falcon,” he said, but softly, as if he didn’t want to disturb the techs working on squeezing me into the bomb casing.  I twittered our channel and winked: Kind of busy right now. Something come up? “No,” the captain responded, again so softly that I knew he definitely didn’t want the techs to overhear.  The only reason I could hear him was that my acoustic enhancements were so sensitive that I could hear a mouse fart from a klick away.  “I just wanted to wish you luck.” For making it back? I answered.  Not likely. “That’s brutal,” he replied and I heard his pain. “I thought that, after all we. . .’ I stopped him there.  I’m not Falcon; just a revised edition. “So it’s just goodbye, then?” Sure.  I closed the channel before he could say anything else.  What I don’t need now is some damn puzzling reference to a past that no longer concerned me. Better not to dwell on the past.  Given humanity’s precarious state, sentiment was dangerous.  Besides, I had to concentrate on my scouting mission. We had to learn more about the aliens on the planet below. I shut everything but the maintenance channel as they oozing the cushioning gel around me.  Its plasticity enfolds me in a warm, soft embrace that creeps into every crack and crevice, sealing me off from sight and sound and every sense save an assurance of my own humanity.  My form might be much reduced, to be sure, but nevertheless I retain my inherent humanity. “We’re closing the lid,” the tech reports over the maintenance channel. It’s time for sleep.  Landing will wake me up.   # The idea behind the drop was dramatic and simple.  Three attack cruisers would carpet bomb the area where the aliens landed.  The drops consisted of ten burrowers, thirty sweepers, and twenty HE bombs from each ship, all distributed to randomly bracket the target. The third, eleventh, and nineteenth bomb of each pod were slow-fuse HE duds, except for the one that contained me. I woke as soon as the bomb slammed into the ground on an oblique angle.  I was not quite fully awake by the second bounce but fully aware as my container rolled down some piece of bumpy geography, stopped, and rocked for a moment before finding a stable orientation.  I pushed up to pop the hatch and got out, dripping gel over the dented casing of the faux bomb. I quickly scanned the area around me.  Apparently I’d tumbled down a steep cliff to come to rest at the bottom among assorted rocks that had fallen from the eroding slope.  I could feel the shock of exploding ordinance through my feet as the delay fuses fired.  That told me that I’d landed near the center of the distribution. My empty casing still packed a punch –enough to fool a casual inspection into thinking it was just another delayed bomb– and the clock was running.  I moved away to put as much distance as I could between me and the bomb before it –WHAM– exploded and threw me tumbling ass over teacup.  Shit!  The techs had set the fuse’s timer too short.  Well, nothing I could do about that now, but I check my systems to be certain and find that no harm was done.  I am hyper-alert to my surroundings and take note of insect sounds, random wind action on the sparse vegetation, small animal movements, and the trembling ground beneath my feet to establish a baseline of whatever passed for “normal” on this planet.  So far, everything agreed with the data the former colonists had provided. Every ten meters I stop to feel the ground for approaching footfalls.  I am continually sniffing the air for any unusual smell, listening for any sound, and watching for anything that might be artificial. At the same time I was “lis[...]

By Ken Liu Read by Ann Leckie Discuss on our forums.  All stories by Ken Liu All stories read by Ann Leckie Rated 10 and up Real Artists By Ken Liu “You’ve done well,” Creative Director Len Palladon said, looking over Sophia’s résumé. Sophia squinted in the golden California sun that fell on her through the huge windows of the conference room. She wanted to pinch herself to be sure she wasn’t dreaming. She was here, really here, on the hallowed campus of Semaphore Pictures, in an interview with the legendary Palladon. She licked her dry lips. “I’ve always wanted to make movies.” She choked back _for Semaphore_. She didn’t want to seem too desperate. Palladon was in his thirties, dressed in a pair of comfortable shorts and a plain gray t-shirt whose front was covered with the drawing of a man swinging a large hammer over a railroad spike. A pioneer in computer-assisted movie making, he had been instrumental in writing the company’s earliest software and was the director of _The Mesozoic_, Semaphore’s first film. He nodded and went on, “You won the Zoetrope screenwriting competition, earned excellent grades in both technology and liberal arts, and got great recommendations from your film studies professors. It couldn’t have been easy.” To Sophia, he seemed a bit pale and tired, as though he had been spending all his time indoors, not out in the golden California sun. She imagined that Palladon and his animators must have been working overtime to meet a deadline: probably to finish the new film scheduled to be released this summer. “I believe in working hard,” Sophia said. What she really wanted was to tell him that she knew what it meant to stay up all night in front of the editing workstation and wait for the rendering to complete, all for the chance to catch the first glimpse of a vision coming to life on the screen. She was ready. Palladon took off his reading glasses, smiled at Sophia, and took out a tablet from behind him. He touched its screen and slid it across the table to Sophia. A video was playing on it. “There was also this fan film, which you didn’t put on your résumé. You made it out of footage cut and spliced from our movies, and it went viral. Several million views in two weeks, right? You gave our lawyers quite a headache.” Sophia’s heart sank. She had always suspected that this might become a problem. But when the invitation to interview at Semaphore came in her email, she had whooped and hollered, and dared to believe that somehow the executives at Semaphore had missed that little film. # Sophia remembered going to _The Mesozoic_. She was seven. The lights dimmed, her parents stopped talking, the first few bars of Semaphore’s signature tune began to play, and she became still. Over the next two hours, as she sat there in the dark theater, mesmerized by the adventure of the digital characters on that screen, she fell in love. She didn’t know it then, but she would never love a person as much as she loved the company that made her cry and laugh, the company that made _The Mesozoic_. A Semaphore movie meant something: no, not merely technological prowess in digital animation and computer graphics that were better than life. Sure, these accomplishments were impressive, but it was Semaphore’s consistent ability to tell a great _story_, to make movies with _heart_, to entertain and move the six-year old along with the sixteen-year old and the sixty-year old, that truly made it an icon, a place worthy of being loved. Sophia saw each of Semaphore’s films hundreds of times. She bought them multiple times, in successive digital formats: discs, compressed downloads, lossless codecs, enhanced and re-enhanced and super-enhanced. She knew each scene down to the second, could recite every line of dialogue from memory. She didn’t even need the movies themselves any more; she could play them in her head. She took film studies classes and began to make her own shorts, and she yearned to make them _feel_ as great as the Sem[...]

By Corry L. Lee Read by MK Hobson Discuss on our forums. First appeared in L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, Vol. 28 (winner) (2011) All stories by MK Hobson All stories read by Corry L. Lee Rated 17 and up for language Shutdown By Corry L. Lee The alarm blared over the forest’s metallic rustling, and my HUD’s red warning light glazed the view through my faceplate. Ten seconds until the defense scan hit my position. Ten seconds until any motion, any electrical signature would whip vines down from the iron-cored trees, wrapping me as surely as steel cables, pinning me while cutter-bugs took me apart. My muscles clenched, and I froze. The training sims hadn’t prepared me for the terror twisting my gut, for the way my heart seemed to dance a _pas-de-bourrée_, its ballerina toes rapping against my ribs. I didn’t have time to panic. I chinned my skinsuit’s kill switch and dropped to the forest floor. In the silence after the klaxon died, my breather hissed out one final gasp of oxygen. The red glow faded from my faceplate and the forest closed in, dark without the HUD’s gain and unnaturally silent without the suit’s audio pickups. Weak sunlight filtered through the thick canopy, yellowed by sulfur gas, enough to make out shapes but not details. In sims, they’d cut our visual enhancement, but they must have extrapolated badly because the shadows had never been this deep, the shafts of sunlight never so diseased. I crouched on a patch of dirt, crumpling fallen leaves but avoiding the forest’s ragged undergrowth. I folded my legs beneath me, splaying my arms for balance. My hands slipped on the metal-rich berries that covered the ground as if someone had derailed a freight train of ball bearings. I swept some impatiently aside and rested my helmeted forehead on the dirt. How much time had passed? Eight seconds? No time to worry. Gritting my teeth, I stopped my heart. A vise seemed to close about my chest. Sweat beaded on my brow as I dragged in one last breath, my body panicking, automatic reflexes screaming at me to fight, to struggle, to escape. I fought them as Sergeant Miller and Captain Johnston trained me, fought them and stopped breathing. My vision narrowed. My lips tingled and went numb. _Twelve minutes_, I repeated to myself as the forest grew dark and disappeared. _You’ll come back._ The words echoed in Sergeant Miller’s clipped bark. Just a few minutes ago he’d given me the thumbs-up after checking my suit’s seals. He’d rapped his knuckles against my helmet for luck, and I’d stridden toward this forested hell. # “So, Amaechi,” Private Yaradua said as I topped my glass off from her flask. “If we were back on Hope’s Landing, what would you do with your last night?” “I’d go whoring,” Obasanjo said. “Nice place in Makurdi where–” “Wouldn’t call it _nice_,” Tamunosaki said. “You mean cheap.” “No, not that place we went with Akpu-nku. There’s one uptown.” Obasanjo shrugged. “Might as well spend all my money, right?” He said it like a joke, but nobody laughed. Yaradua knocked her glass back, and Balogun focused on twirling her knife. We headed planetside at 0800 tomorrow, and MilComm gave slim odds that we’d make it back. The silence stretched, Obasanjo looking expectantly around for someone to agree with him. Yaradua clanged her empty glass down on the table. “I didn’t fucking ask you, Obasanjo. I asked Amaechi.” “She’d probably go to the ballet,” he said with a snort. The corners of my glass dug into my palms; I wondered if I could squeeze it hard enough for it to shatter. The two missing fingers on my left hand itched. I twitched the stub of my middle finger, and contemplated slamming my glass into Obasanjo’s forehead. If it weren’t for those [...]

By David Steffen Read by Emma Newman Discuss on our forums. An Escape Pod original! All stories by David Steffen All stories read by Emma Newman Rated 13 and up Marley and Cratchit by David Steffen STAVE 1: THE MARVELOUS MACHINE In those days Jacob Marley was full of life and vigor. His smile shone so that anyone who saw him soon smiled widely in return. A moment in his presence would make one’s worst burdens seem lighter. His optimism and generosity brought out the best in others, catching easily as a torch in dry straw. Those were happy, hopeful times. Ebenezer Scrooge, the pinch-faced and greedy miser, would not weigh on his mind until many years later. In those later years the two men’s appearances matched as twins, and their customers would often confuse one for the other. But in every other manner they were as different as two men could be. I will speak further of Scrooge, but not yet, for this is not his tale. In these days long gone, Jacob Marley was a portly man, neatly dressed and neatly groomed, with hair black as pitch and never a whisker on his face. Marley entered the shop on that momentous day in the manner with which he was accustomed, swinging the door wide and exclaiming “Hallo!” to his business partner in a sonorous voice that any Shakespearian actor would envy. His jowls swung with the force of his entry, and wobbled like a custard for quite some time after. His clothes were not of the finest material, but were fine enough for a man of his young age, a sign of the moderate inheritance left him by his father the year prior. The front office held two desks, one tidy and one covered with heaps of paper and mechanisms. Behind the cluttered desk Bob Cratchit looked up with a quiet smile. Where Marley was expansive and memorable, Cratchit was small and quiet and utterly forgettable. He was a pleasant man, so pleasant that I have only ever known one man to ever speak crossly of him: Scrooge, that nasty old miser who spoke crossly of everyone, regardless of cause. Look! He has intruded again upon our story where he is not wanted. I will speak of him no more until his presence enters upon the story. Although Cratchit was a pleasant man, and earnest, he was easily forgotten, apt to leave no lasting impression on the memory. In fact, even I can no longer bring his features clearly to my mind. All I can say of his appearance is that he was exceedingly ordinary in every respect, and he was of an age with his partner, both old enough to have earned their own reputation, but young enough to hold wild and optimistic musings of their future. Cratchit’s forgettable appearance suited him well enough, because people made him unaccountably nervous, and he found even idle conversation to be terribly taxing. If no one remembered him, then no one would seek him out and he would be left to his alchemy. In those days he did little else, his efforts supported by Marley’s coffers in the hopes of finding something to build a business on. “I’ve finished it,” Cratchit. “I’ve finished my great work, the one which will make us our fortune.” “Oh! Why didn’t you say so!” Marley asked, with a slap to Cratchit’s shoulder. “To your feet, Bob. Jump with joy, shout from the rooftops.” “I am quite excited,” Cratchit admitted, still smiling his quiet little smile. “Would you like to see it work?” “Of course, of course.” Cratchit led the way to the workroom in the back where Marley hadn’t ventured for months, not wanting to disturb the alchemical processes. The workroom was but a larger manifestation of the cluttered desk at the front, packed from wall to wall with papers and metalwork, beakers and boilers. Cratchit’s newest and greatest work stood in the center of the room, looking like a shrine within its circle of clear space. It was an upright wooden hoop a pace in diameter, with strang[...]

By J. Kelley Anderson Read by David Moore Discuss on our forums. Originally appeared in Ray Gun Revival (2012) All stories by J. Kelley Anderson All stories read by David Moore Rated 13 and up Oubliette By J. Kelley Anderson The half-buried thing hadn’t moved once, but I didn’t have to include that in the story when I got back to base. The great, gray mass of it rose at least ten feet out of the red earth, tucked close to the sheer wall of the plateau. That part I’d tell. If there had been anything like a head, I would have shot it, but it just looked like a giant, lumpy football, oozing a viscous yellowy liquid here and there. The non-military personnel tried to remember their instructions, looking away from the muzzle of my rifle as the metallic squeal of the charging weapon warned of an impending discharge. The moment the noise ended, a pencil-thin beam of white light leapt from the gun and bored another sizzling hole into the motionless mound of wrinkled gray flesh. There was a sound like someone cooking giant bacon in a giant skillet. I just can’t describe how much I love photon rifles. They’re big, noisy, ugly, unapologetic things that leave your hands shaking and the entire area smelling like ozone. They were shit on stealth missions but, then, so am I—that’s just one of the many reasons I got this gig as the Army equivalent of a galactic janitor. Sergeant Wroblewski and I made eye contact as I turned to address the science team, and I noted the silent “high-five” look on his face. “Well?” I said smoothly to Science Officer Neely. “Doesn’t get much deader than that.” I tried to look nonchalant. Neely raised some sort of high-tech monocular to his eye and peered at the creature. “No, I’m afraid not,” he said, shaking his head. “What? That’s the fourth direct hit. What the hell is that goo bubbling out of it, if it isn’t dead?” “Well, I’m not certain captain, but that ‘goo’ was bubbling out of it when we arrived.” “Christ, the thing has four holes through it that weren’t there when we got here. I may not know much, but I know dead. And that thing is dead.” “Captain, we all have the same orders. We can’t establish a construction base, let alone a settlement, until we clear the indigenous flora and fauna from this sector. It is fortuitous that, on this occasion, there is only a single life form here. But, I’m telling you, that organism’s life signs have not changed since we arrived.” “Look,” I said slowly, “I put holes in things. That’s how we kill things. It’s a tried and true method that has worked for humanity many, many times. What do you suggest I do next?” “That isn’t really my area of expertise, but explosives come to mind.” “I would agree with you, if I had brought any.” (Truthfully, I didn’t have the clearance to handle explosives.) “I was told ‘one, big sedentary critter.’ Didn’t think I needed to bring detonators.” “Well, then might I suggest. . .” Neely’s lips kept moving, but it suddenly seemed like the sounds just plain weren’t reaching my ears. There was a strange subtle pressure building behind my eyes, and a low rumbling steadily becoming louder. Neely’s mouth just kept flapping and I could tell that neither he, nor the rest of the group, felt anything out of the ordinary. Then, without warning, everything just stopped. I don’t mean the group stood still, I mean stopped—like I had just found myself in the middle of a photograph. The pressure in my head slacked to a general, sustained discomfort. It sorta felt like being in deep water, except that I could breathe and move just fine. I glanced up at a swirling cloud of whitish vapor that was now simply frozen motionless against the pinkish backdrop of the sky. “Uh. . .” I said thoughtfully to nobody in particular. “That’s probably not good.” “What, you mean you can’t do that?” Asked a voice behind me. I whirled around, bracing the stock of my rifle against my shoulder as I moved. “Seriously? That’s your plan? You’re really gonna shoot me with that thing[...]

By Samantha Henderson Read by Mur Lafferty Discuss on our forums. Originally appeared in Lone Star Stories (2009) All stories by Samantha Henderson All stories read by Mur Lafferty Rated 13 and up Chandra’s Game by Samantha Henderson Joey Straphos, Papa Joe, told me once that Chandra’s Game is a bitch of a city, fickle but generous when the mood strikes her.  But Papa Joe was a romantic. Chandra’s Game roots in the side of a barren asteroid moon like a tick.  Over the years we’ve burrowed deeper into rock and ice until poor Chandra is mostly Game.  We loop the twin wormholes, Gehenna and Tartarus, roundabout in a figure eight, ready to catch the freighters as they escape from hell’s dark maw.  We strip them of goods and drink their heat, load them up and send them into another hell.  It’s a profitable game, Chandra’s. My mother smuggled me into Chandra’s Game without patronage and compounded her error by dying without permission; I was Terra-born unless she was lying, which was likely enough.  I joined the other unregistereds down in the Warrens: ferals that lived off the Mayor’s Dole and by odd-jobs when that wasn’t enough.  Papa Joe fed us, and sometimes the tunnels were glorious with the smell of meat, and if you were smart or hungry enough you didn’t ask from what.  Where there’s humanity there are rats, and Joey wasn’t a rich man, not then.  But food is food, and he’d bunk you if he could, and if all he asked in return for the latest Warren scuttlebutt or a few sticks of ephedrine off a freighter’s load, what of it?  Saints are few and far between in Chandra’s Game. Papa Joe always liked me: I stayed a bit feral, tomboy—nothing like his daughters.  He had them late in life, when he got rich, and they were elegant, lux level creatures.  Not like Joey, not like Mrs. Joe.  She was quiet and kind, and if she knew a nano of Joey’s business she never let on.  When Gregor Straphos died I died a little.  But Mrs. Joe died all the way. I’d been legit for years.  I still snooped, but in an upright way.  Helped the Company Men find bits of their loads that went astray between Gehenna and Tartarus, passed on Warren talk to the prefects when some smart kid got out of hand, pointed the way to speedwell labs that weren’t circumspect about what went into their product.  Nothing that would disturb the delicate balance between the business of the Family, the Companies and the Mayor. Joey had his own snoops, payroll loyal.  So when a grubby-faced feral knocked up my crib, saying Joey wanted a word, I had to wonder why.  I hadn’t seen him in years.  Not since Gregor was cremated. Papa Joe never lived on the lux levels: too far away from his daily business.  His crib was in that middle span twixt Warren and lux, where the heavy, humid smell of humans going about their dailies pervaded.  Inset into the dull rough rock of Chandra’s tunnels, his entry was like mine but for the over-muscled toughs that bracketed it, giving me a once-over glare but no guff.  Past his door it was different. Good living thickened him.  He gripped me by the shoulders, hard, and shook me, his heavy gold rings bruising my shoulders. “It’s been a long time, Sarabet,” he rumbled.  “Too long.” He pushed me into an overstuffed sofa, and I looked at the crib with a professional eye.  The room was luxurious, almost frivolous.  The walls had been polished smooth, and intricate patterns were visible in the surface that looked so dull in the tunnels.  The furniture, Terran-antique, could’ve kept me living high for years.  A thick Thantopian carpet covered the floor, cut from the surface of a place Joey and me would never see—it was the probably the most precious thing in the place, beautifully marbled in blue and green.  The warmth of it struck up through my thin corridor slippers. There were ikons of people I didn’t recognize on tabletops and inset into the smooth walls.  Some I did: there was Mrs. Joe, looking mild and maybe sl[...]

Awkward– Miscommunication between editor, host, and producer caused us to, within the audio, proclaim these stories as the winners of the flash contest, and they’re not, they’re stories we’ve purchased through the year. We will be showcasing the flash contest winners on their own in future episodes. I apologize for the embarrassing mistake. Read by Mur Lafferty Discuss on our forums. All stories read by Mur Lafferty Rated 10 and up Health Tips for Traveler by David W. Goldman Since the short time from mutual greetings of worlds, many Earther wish to visit the lovely world of the Pooquar peoples. This explainer before so will bring yourselves a voyage most lovely. Within The Transit The travel via cross-continuum portal will be novel to many Earther. Hydration is a paramount for not having the small problems of liver, marrow, blood tubes, and self memory. Also good before your trip is to make fat, especially under the skin. The scrawny traveler should begin preparation many week prior. Portal going is sudden and then done. But many Earther say after that they think the journey is very very very long and never to stop. Thus is Earther brains supposed bad attuned to one or more of the interim journey continuum. For thus, non-conscious makes for most lovely travel. Means of non-conscious both pharmacological and percussive are on offer by helpful Pooquar portal agents. As the Early Days Because subtle differences in physics regulations from what most Earther are parochially accustomed, the traveler is suggested to acclimate in the “horizontal” position until local niceties of unreliant gravity, time-keeping, and atmospheric presence become appreciated. Acclimation such will entertain you for no more than two — or for some traveler, twenty or thirty — “days.” While thus occupied with your appreciation of localness, helpful Pooquar hostelry staffpersons will provide you with lovely hydration and fat-making nutritionals. For your best healths, stint not on your consumption. Touring the Out-Vicinity While you delight yourselves in the appreciation of very-known scenics as the Flowing Up Falls of Nagbaf, the Lesser Half Dark Big Hole, the Plain of Many Breath Sucks, and other such lovely vicissitudes, some attention to health and safeness are ordered. Firstmost, if urgent advised by helpful Pooquar tour leader, immediately disobey not! Your very life endurance may happen. This is especially as pertains to stepping away from lovely trails, consuming unadvised nutritionals, perusing explainers offered by exiled dissident non-persons, or providing unsolicited refreshment to local fauna/flora/other life-beings. Next, maintenance your lovely all-enwrapping tourist jumpsuit and coverall always. The presentation of the skin, even a small only piece of the skin, is discouraged for health. This from the fad of local life-beings to reproduce by injecting seed-forms into passing faunas, later to germinate and partake of the subcutaneous lipids in achieving bigness. Thus is best always your jumpsuit and coverall with integrity. (Small note: In the event of any rash of discolor or tendrils from the skin please notify immediately your helpful Pooquar tour leader for the swift extirpation.) In finality, avoid districts of elevated temperature and humidity. In these grow the grubs of local life-beings, who may exhibit unsolicited hunger of lovely Earther visitor. After leaving the out-vicinities, you should place the above-spoken biologic factual concerns far from your self memories. Of the Urban Jollity In welcome for subsequent your joyful tours of the out-vicinities, the Pooquar peoples of the citified regions will ply you unsparingly with lovely bring-home curios and appliances and also nutritionals without betterment for taste and skin-fat-making. Enjoy all these with loveliness! In the cities is no great harm for concern of health. But be full of alert to avoiding speech from irks[...]

By Cat Rambo Read by Elizabeth Musselman Discuss on our forums. Originally appeared in TALES FROM THE FATHOMLESS ABYSS All stories by Cat Rambo All stories read by Elizabeth Musselman Rated 13 and up A Querulous Flute of Bone by Cat Rambo Wherever, whenever wealth accumulates enough to create the idle, one finds those who collect things. Such collections vary. Some catalog every cast off bit of flesh or chitin they shed. Others look outside themselves for art, or titillation, or an oblivion in which they can forget everyday life. Collections may consist of the most mundane objects: string, or chewed up paper, or broken teacups, for example. Or they can take on outré forms: dioramas made of nihlex bone (considered contraband in certain areas), or squares of cloth exposed to the Smog, prized for the oracular patterns of dirt left deposited on the fabric, or the tiny aluminum snowflakes said to have fallen into the world during an Opening over a century ago. Aaben was such a collector. S/he was one of the geniod, whose gender varies according to mood, location, and other private considerations, and who are known, in the face of great trauma, to forget who they are and become entirely different personalities, their old selves never to be resumed or spoken of. Some races adulate them for this, while others mock them. Such excesses of reaction have driven the geniod to keep to themselves, not by law, but preference. Aaben was an oddity in its own preferences, for it was willing to travel, to go farther than most of its race, driven by the desire to augment its collection, choosing to focus only on its quest. The items it sought, ranging up and down the Tube in expeditions funded by two sets of indulgent grandparents and a much less indulgent set of parents, were things that could be considered metaphors for the world and the state of those in it. In this pursuit, it followed the strictures of the philosopher-king Nackle, who described the emotions that such objects evoked in the beholder in one five hundred page monograph, and the intellectual effect of such exposure in a second, even longer work, followed by a six volume set of explanatory footnotes and addendums. Aaben had studied at the knee of an ancient human who had himself been instructed by an uncle who had read thoroughly in the works of Nackle. The teaching had impressed it with a gravity and depth of the sort that scores the soul and directs all its movements in later years. Its search was a tribute to Nackle’s ideas, for it looked for the things that Nackle posited existed, which could only be discovered by matching the emotion they evoked with that described in Nackle’s pages, a task that required the laborious memorization of all of the philosopher’s works. Nackle’s theory, insofar as such a thing can be simplified, was this: Twenty one types of emotion exist in the world. Certain artifacts create emotions in the viewer, emotions unaffected by the viewer’s history or idiosyncrasies of personality, but which are basic to the existence of all intelligent creatures. There are literally hundreds of sub-emotions, ranging from a soul’s regret when it wishes to sing but cannot, to the joy of carrying on one’s ancestral line in the face of tremendous adversity or the anticipatory worry that one might not fully recall an upcoming oracular dream. The perception of these emotions required deep study and meditation. To find the artifacts that replicated the base emotion, the one from which all the smaller sub-emotions sprang, one must move through a progression of refinement of the senses, created by the search for and exposure to artifacts exemplifying the emotions Nackle described. Most of Nackle’s followers would object to this simplification. They would point to subtleties of one kind or another, but truth be told, the theory was relatively uncomplicated. It was the lengthy cataloging of emotions that gave the philosophy intellectual density, rather than any complex thou[...]

By M. Darusha Wehm Read by Christiana Ellis Discuss on our forums. An Escape Pod Original! All stories by M. Darusha Wehm All stories read by Christiana Ellis Rated 13 and up for language The Care and Feeding of Mammalian Bipeds, v. 2.1 by M. Darusha Wehm The first day I meet my human herd they are so well-behaved that I wonder if they really need me at all. I arrive at their dwelling, and am greeted by the largest one of their group. I access the manual with which I have been programmed and skip to Section 3: Verbal and Physical Clues for Sexing Humans. I can tell by the shape and outer garments that this human is a male, and I make a note of this data. He brings me into the main area of their living space, and as we move deeper into the dwelling, he asks me to call him Taylor, so immediately I do. He makes a noise deep in his throat, then introduces me to the rest of the herd. He puts his forelimb around the next largest one, who he introduces as Madison. The Madison bares its teeth at me in a manner that Section 14: Advanced Non-Verbal Communication suggests is a gesture indicating happiness, approval, cheerfulness, or amusement, but which may belie insincerity, boredom or hostility. The Madison says, “Welcome to the family, Rosie.” “Thank you, Madison,” I respond, as suggested by the manual in Section 2: Introductions: Getting To Know Your Humans. “I am looking forward to serving you and your family.” The manual indicates that human herds designate each individual with a name, and that most will bestow a similar designation on their caregiver. Section 0: A Brief Overview of Current Anthropological Theories states that the predominant view is that humans believe we are a new addition to the herd, and the best thing to do is to go along with this idea so as not to confuse them. The Taylor and the Madison appear to have chosen to refer to me by the name Rosie, and I set my monitoring routine to key on the sound of that word. “These here are Agatha and Frederick,” the Taylor says, pushing two smaller humans toward me. I am unable to tell by looking whether or not they are male or female — they are about the same height as each other, with shoulder-length glossy fur. Their outer coverings are very similar, shapeless and dark coloured except with colourful designs in the upper section. One of them bares its teeth at me, in a manner similar to the Madison’s earlier display, but the other looks away. “Kids,” the Taylor says, his voice growing deeper, “say hi to the new robot.” “Hi, Rosie,” the toothy one says, “I’m Frederick, and this is my sister, Aggie.” The Frederick pulls on the forelimb of the other one, who looks through its fur at me. “This is so stupid,” it says, pulling its arm out of its sibling’s grip. “I don’t have to say hi to the dishwasher or the school bus, why do I have to pretend to be nice to this thing?” “Agatha,” the Madison says, its voice becoming higher pitched. “Be civilized.” “We don’t need a house-bot,” the Agatha says. “It’s so embarrassing.” It turns away from the rest of the herd, and walks into another part of the dwelling. “I’ll go talk to her,” the Frederick says, and walks away. Her. The Agatha is female, then. The Madison turns toward me, its skin colouring a dark pink tone. I make a note to check its temperature later — it would not do for a member of my herd to become ill. “I’m sorry about Agatha,” it says. “She’s thirteen. You know how teenagers are.” I do not understand what it is I am expected to know about teenagers, but I do know that the correct response to the sounds “I’m sorry,” is “Don’t worry, it’s okay,” so that is what I say. I notice the Madison’s colour return to[...]

By Robert Silverberg Read by Michael Spence Discuss on our forums All stories by Robert Silverberg All stories read by Michael Spence Rated 13 and over for sexual innuendo Nominee for Hugo Award for Best Short Story (1970) Passengers By Robert Silverberg There are only fragments of me left now. Chunks of memory have broken free and drifted away like calved glaciers. It is always 
like that when a Passenger leaves us. We can never be sure of all the things our borrowed bodies did. We have only the lingering traces, 
the imprints. Like sand clinging to an ocean-tossed bottle. Like the throbbings of amputated legs. I rise. I collect myself. My hair is rumpled; I comb it. My face is creased from too little sleep. There is sourness in my mouth. Has my Passenger been eating dung with my mouth? They do that. They do anything. It is morning. A gray, uncertain morning. I stare at it awhile, and then, shuddering, I opaque the window and confront instead the gray, uncertain surface of the inner panel. My room looks untidy. Did I have a woman here? There are ashes in the trays. Searching for butts, I find several with lipstick stains. Yes, a woman was here. I touched the bedsheets. Still warm with shared warmth. Both 
pillows tousled. She has gone, though, and the Passenger is gone, and I am alone. How long did it last, this time? I pick up the phone and ring Central. “What is the date?” The computer’s bland feminine voice replies, “Friday, December fourth, nineteen eighty-seven.” “The time?” “Nine fifty-one, Eastern Standard Time.” “The weather forecast?” “Predicted temperature range for today thirty to thirty-eight. Current temperature, thirty-one. Wind from the north, sixteen miles an hour. Chances of precipitation slight.” “What do you recommend for a hangover?” “Food or medication?” “Anything you like,” I say. The computer mulls that one over for a while. Then it decides on both, and activates my kitchen. The spigot yields cold tomato juice. Eggs begin to fry. From the medicine slot comes a purplish liquid. The Central Computer is always so thoughtful. Do the Passengers ever ride it, I wonder? What thrills could that hold for them? Surely it must be more exciting to borrow the million minds of Central than to live awhile in the short-circuited soul of a corroding human being! December fourth, Central said. Friday. So the Passenger had me for three nights. I drink the purplish stuff and probe my memories in a gingerly way, as one might probe a festering sore. I remember Tuesday morning. A bad time at work. None of the charts will come out right. The section manager irritable; he has been taken by Passengers three times in five weeks, and his section is in disarray as a result, and his Christmas bonus is jeopardized. Even though it is customary not to penalize a person for lapses due to Passengers, according to the system, the section manager seems to feel he will be treated unfairly. So he treats us unfairly. We have a hard time. Revise the charts, fiddle with the program, check the fundamentals ten times over. Out they come: the detailed forecasts for price variations of public utility securities, February-April 1988. That afternoon we are to meet and discuss the charts and what they tell us. I do not remember Tuesday afternoon. That must have been when the Passenger took me. Perhaps at work; perhaps in the mahogany-paneled boardroom itself, during the conference. Pink concerned faces all about me; I cough, I lurch, I stumble from my seat. They shake their heads sadly. No one reaches for me. No one stops me. It is too dangerous to interfere with one who has a Passenger. The chances are great that a second Passenger lurks nearby in the discorporate state, looking for a mount. So I am avoided. I leave the building. After that, what? Sitting in my room on bleak Friday morning, I eat my scrambled eggs and try to reconstruct the three lost nights. Of course it is impossible. The conscious mind functions during the period of captivity[...]

By Marjorie James Read by Dr. John Cmar Discuss on our forums. An Escape Pod Original! All stories by Marjorie James — including EP007– The Trouble With Death Traps and EP224– The Ghost In The Death Trap. All stories read by John Cmar Rated 13 and up for language Springtime for Deathtraps By Marjorie James The building sat in a small clearing in the jungle, its stone walls radiating solidity and the midday heat. Giant statues of warrior-gods crushing skulls beneath their feet flanked the doorway. Xnab looked from the ornately carved keyhole to his customer and back again. “And the key is where, exactly?” he asked. “In the treasure chamber,” the big man said in a small voice. “We had just finished putting everything away and, well, it had been a long day. I think I must have put the key down on the altar or something. The problem is, the place locks automatically, and our entire fortune is in there. We had a few locksmiths out to work on it, but they didn’t get very far.” Xnab nodded. He had already noticed the blood spatter around the keyhole. “So that’s why we called you. Everyone said that if anybody could get in there, it would be you.” Xnab accepted that, not as a compliment, but a statement of fact. He was a specialist the design and construction of booby traps, deadfalls and other, largely fatal, security options. He was a small man, thin and wiry, his shaved head still smooth and unwrinkled despite years of working in the sun. Despite making a very good living, he wore a plain tunic and no adornments at all. In his business, he considered it a bad idea to have anything extra hanging around, and he was very good at his business. In fact, anyone who knew anything considered Xnab the best death trap designer alive. Which typically would have been reason enough to turn down a job like this, but in this case it was actually why he was there. “How long have you owned the temple?” he asked the man, who had introduced himself as Tuak. “Just a couple of months, actually,” Tuak admitted. “It’s not really a temple. I think the statues of the gods are just there for show. The family who used to have it used it to store their treasures and they spared no expense on the security.” He sighed heavily and stared up at the tiers of stone vanishing into the jungle. “It seemed like a good idea when we bought it.” Xnab’s apprentice, Qualenizmunetil (Qual to anyone who couldn’t be bothered) came back from where he had been examining the walls of the entrance and joined them. “They’re perfectly smooth, sir,” the boy said with something close to awe. “I can’t even find a tool mark.” “And you won’t,” said Tuak, pride of ownership momentarily overcoming his embarrassment. “There isn’t another building like this anywhere in the eighteen kingdoms.” “No,” Xnab said. “There isn’t.” He spent a moment staring down the apparently open and inviting corridor, then turned back to his customer. “You mentioned the previous owners. How did you come to own this place?” Tuak smirked. “Well, a treasure house isn’t much use if you don’t have any treasure left to store. You know, all these the aristocrat families are the same. They go on for generations, saying they’re the cousins of the wind gods, making everyone lick the stones in front of them. Then one day they lose a couple wars and the next thing you know the last of the line is blowing through the money like he doesn’t know what saving is. The storehouse was the last thing he had to sell.” None of this was of much interest to Xnab, so he listened with half an ear as the man turned his attention to Qual, his earlier embarrassment apparently forgotten. “I say it’s about time,” Tuak went on. [...]

By Vylar Kaftan Read by John Chu Discuss on our forums. Originally appeared in Asimov’s (2012) All stories by Vylar Kaftan All stories read by John Chu Rated 15 and up for language and adult situations Lion Dance by Vylar Kaftan I knew Wing’s idea was stupid.  But we were all so goddamn sick of quarantine that it sounded great anyway. “Chinese New Year on Halloween night, huh?” I asked him.  We sat on his broken futon and some folding chairs, passing a bottle of Captain Jack among the eight of us.  Someone leaned on a car horn outside our apartment.  When they didn’t stop, my buddy Matt leaned out the window and swore at them in Mandarin.  Matt was loud–even a flu mask didn’t muffle his bellowing.  I swear, even though every restaurant in San Francisco Chinatown had been closed since February, tourists still cruised the streets.  Even a pandemic couldn’t stop them completely. “Dude.  Someone will shoot us,” said the guy from 4B, who I think was named Jimmy Li.  We all lived in the same nasty building on Grant Street above a dim sum place owned by our slumlord.  I knew Matt, who’d invited me, and my little brother Jian of course.  Wing lived here in 3A.  I’d just met the Chao twins who had different haircuts, and then Jimmy and some dude Xiang.  At twenty-three, I was pretty sure I was the oldest guy here. “That’s the point,” said Wing heavily, as if he’d explained this a hundred times when he actually hadn’t.  “We’ll be in costume.  First off, all the riots will be in the Mission, so that’s where the cops will be.  Second, no one’s going to shoot a New Year’s lion.  Dude.  It’s Chinatown.  All the old cops here are superstitious.  Can you imagine how much bad luck it would bring?  Even if some cop got itchy on the trigger, he’ll think about it long enough for us to run away.” “No one’s shooting anyone,” said Matt.  “For God’s sake, this isn’t Montana.”  He pushed his mask aside, swigged the Jack, and passed it to Jian.  I snagged the bottle out of his hands.  No freaking way would I let my little brother drink from that bottle.  Who knew where the other guys had been?  They might pull off their masks and drink, but damned if I let my little brother do it.  Jian glared at me, but didn’t fight back. I passed the bottle to Wing.  “They might shoot if things get out of hand,” I said.  “It’s Halloween.  Everyone’s twitchy.  But you’re right, I heard a bunch of people are gonna swarm the Mission.  That’s where the cops will go.” Wing took another swig.  He wasn’t wearing a mask; that was only Matt and Jian and me.  Wing went to the kitchen and reappeared with a stack of well-used disposable cups and washed straws.  He swiped an unopened bottle of Jose Cuervo off a shelf and handed it to me. I thanked him and poured myself way too much tequila.  I knew I wasn’t supposed to peel the mask off, even for a minute, but it’d been a bad week.  My parents were getting evicted and Jian’s antivirals were out of stock everywhere.  Pissed me off–HIV drugs did crap against the flu, but people were desperate and they got prescriptions from quacks.  So my little brother might develop full-blown AIDS thanks to those selfish jackholes. I slid my mask aside and sucked furiously on the straw.  The Cuervo burned my throat as it went down.  Screw it all.  I felt so goddamn helpless.  More than anything I wanted to do something to make things better, but what could I do?  I couldn’t cure the flu or save anyone’s life.  All I could do was avoid getting sick.  I mean, I’d thought about helping at the hospital or something, but I had to protect my brother. “Bo,” said Jian, leaning over, “come on, gimme some of that.  Please?” I looked at hi[...]