Escape Pod

By Laura Lee McArdle Read by Christiana Ellis Discuss on our forums. An Escape Pod Original! All stories by Laura Lee McArdle All stories read by Christiana Ellis Rated 15 and up for explicit language Food for Thought By Laura Lee McArdle He didn’t look much like the humans I knew—their eyes squinting out of wind-burnt faces from atop the backs of their rude horses. This one had a face like butter, not a wrinkle to be seen. And he didn’t arrive on a horse, rude or otherwise, just popped out of thin air and started talking to me. Not at me. To me. “Slow down,” I said flicking a fly off my broad backside. “Wilfred, right? You are responsible for the fence posts?” “Yeah sure,” said Wilfred. “Now listen to me. I just need a thirty second vignette when I say ‘action’. Can you do that for me? “Sure,” I said. I love to talk about myself. “You heard the animal,” he shouted to no one I could see. “Food For Thought, take one. Action!” “Uh, Bess here. Folks call me the conspiracy theorist.  And I laugh.  But honestly if you don’t spend some time speculating out here what are you going to do?  Me, I walk the fence, count the posts and calculate trigonometric functions.  And I am convinced there is a way to get my 1200 lb bulk past these 4000 odd posts and reams of barbed wire. By the way, I’ve come pretty far with the weight issue, thank you very much. The secret is small frequent meals, so I pretty much eat a little bit all the time when I’m not counting posts.  The other trick, that I don’t think any of my sisters have clocked on to, is to just not use stomachs three and four. Sure it takes practice, even surgery for lesser minds, but if you don’t have a project out here you will simply go mad. But I digress.  The fence around East Pasture, the present location of my languid existence, has 4409 posts.  That’s a rather large prime number. Coincidence? I think not! The fence is clearly a test to separate the truly intelligent from the herd.  Since I am clearly at the pinnacle of bovine braininess and already somewhat estranged from my herd I know it’s only a matter of time before I pass.” “Cut!” screamed Wilfred beaming. “Bess, my dear, that was gorgeous.  You are a natural born… monologist.” He clapped and did a little dance that made his sequined garment bounce and sparkle in the sun. “Monologist?  Is that a word?” “Whatever. You, the monologue—the viewers are going to lap it up. I,” –he paused for effect- “am a genius.” I snorted. “I thought you said I was the genius.” “Did I say that?  I meant savant. Anyway, you found the posts and you’re coming in loud and clear on the translator, so season 24 is a go!” He degenerated into dancing again, executing an exuberant pirouette. “Hold on a minute there Wilf. I did the little self-introduction you wanted.  I’ve been extremely cooperative. Now fill me in.  What’s the real deal with the fence?  Where did you come from and why are you testing me?” Wilfred poked a handheld device with his index finger and yelled instructions toward some point behind him. “Frank! Roll cameras I need tape of this!” “Rolling Wilf,” a disembodied voice answered. “Excellent. Now Bess, you know those humans who come here, check you over, give you medicine?” He grinned in a way that raised the hair on the back of my neck. “Yeah”. He leaned in close to my twitching ears. “They grind you up and eat you.” “I knew it!” I bellowed and stamped. “I’ve said it over and over again, but no-one takes me seriously. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.” I trotted in circles trying not to hyperventilate while Wilfred watched with obvious pleasure. “Wait a second.” I rounded on Wilfred. “You’re [...]

By Josh Roseman Read by Mur Lafferty Discuss on our forums. An Escape Pod Original! All stories by Josh Roseman All stories read by Mur Lafferty Rated 15 and up for explicit language 113 Feet By Josh Roseman “This is a really bad idea, Elle,” Barry says. “You didn’t have to come.” “Don’t be stupid,” he snaps. “Phil would kill me if I didn’t come with you.” Barry is fiftyish, portly and gray-haired. Seeing him take off his shirt is an experience I wish I’d never had. “I have friends with certifications,” I say. “It’s not like I couldn’t have asked one of them.” “How many of them have actually been down there?” It’s almost a growl, and I’m actually cowed a little. “That’s what I thought.” I sit on the hard bench, wood planks covered in thin, all-weather carpet, and fiddle with my regulator. “How far away do you think we are?” he asks. “Don’t know. Ask the captain.” Barry looks up at the bridge, where Al — the captain — stands, driving the boat. Al is even older than Barry, narrow and hard and tanned almost leathery with decades of exposure to the sun. Instead of going up to talk to him, though, Barry goes around the cabin to stand by the bow, leaving me bouncing up and down on the bench as the boat zips across the water. The light chop makes the horizon rise and fall faster than is comfortable. I can take it, though, and if I get sick enough to throw up, at least I know enough to do it over the side. My guess is that we’re ten minutes from the dive site. Maybe fifteen. After waiting seven years to get my answers, fifteen minutes isn’t much of a wait at all. # I was seven when I first realized my dad was doing more than just studying the life cycle of coral reefs. I’d been in the ocean with Grandpa; I knew what they looked like. I knew there were natural ones and artificial ones; I knew that if you touched a reef, part of it could die, and that if you touched fire coral, you’d burn. The big tank at Dad’s office had plenty of coral inside. I separated myself from him — it was easy; he was so focused on his work that when I said I had to go to the bathroom he didn’t even notice — and went off on my own. No one watched me climb up on a chair. No one noticed my nose was so close to the water that all I could smell was salt. No one saw me reach in and brush the back of my hand on the bright-orange coral flower. The scream made Dad come running. He picked me up as I cried and shouted, carried me to a chair, and told me to hold out my arm. Then he poured clear liquid over my skin: vinegar, like what Mom used to clean the floor. It didn’t make the burn stop hurting, but it helped, and after a few minutes I started to calm down. “What happened?” When I looked at Dad, it was through a blur of tears. “I reached in the tank,” I said. “I touched the coral.” “Oh, come on!” Dad said — almost yelled. “I’ve told you before: this isn’t a game! It’s not a place to play! This is my job, and if you can’t behave, you can stay home with your brother next time. You got that?” I stared at him for a second, then burst into fresh tears. Dad shook his head and crouched in front of me. “I’m sorry, Eleanora. I didn’t mean to shout. You just… worried me. And you know you shouldn’t have touched something that was going to hurt you, right?” “I…” A hiccup. “I’m… I’m sorry, Daddy…” He leaned forward and hugged me, rubbing my back. “Come on. I’ll get my things, and we can go home.” “‘Kay.” He asked me to sit in his desk chair and wait while he called Mom. He’d left his computer turned on, and I read[...]

By Tim Pratt Read by A Kovacs Discuss on our forums. Originally appeared in Diet Soap (2007) All stories by Tim Pratt All stories read by A Kovacs Rated 17 and up for explicit language Observer Effects By Tim Pratt “Ubiquitous surveillance isn’t the problem. Asymmetrical ubiquitous surveillance is the problem.” The Liberator was playing Chinese checkers against himself and talking, talking, talking, like always. “Who watches the watchmen, after all?” We were superheroes then. Celebrities, back when there were such things. It was a slow night at orbital headquarters, and Eye-Oh was sitting at the big screen, watching a couple of people fuck — consensually, or we would have done something about it — in an alleyway. The screen was green with night-vision enhancements, and Eye-Oh’s strange complicated face was perfectly placid and empty as he observed. “The problem is that we can watch ordinary people, and they can’t watch us,” the Liberator went on. He looked at me longingly, searchingly, and I thought it might be nice to tweak the inside of his brain and get rid of his earnestness, give him a little taste of what infamous brain-damage victim Phineas Gage got when that iron bar slammed through his frontal lobe, a total personality turnaround, from nice guy to sociopath. Let the Liberator be selfish and impulsive and violent and mercurial for a while, so he could appreciate the way normal avaricious sneaky hungry desperate needy people felt. But that was supervillain thinking, and I’d gone straight and narrow. In those days I cured neurological damage instead of inflicting it. I fixed people. (Except bad people. Those, I was sometimes still allowed to play with with.) I’d refused to give up my supervillain name though. The Liberator had wanted to call me “Dr. Neuro” when I joined his little boys’ club, but I’d insisted on keeping my maiden name, as it were. Doctor. Please. I was a high-school dropout. “Do you see?” the Liberator said. “If ordinary people could see us, if everyone could see everyone else, it wouldn’t matter if there were no privacy.” “Mmm,” I said, and tried to keep reading my book, a physics textbook. I was deep into a chapter on Heisenberg. His big achievement was the uncertainty principle, which says you can’t know both the position and the momentum of a given particle at the same time. (I know, you know that. But like I said, I didn’t do much school. I had a lot of catching up to do if I was going to hang with the super-science types.) I always thought the uncertainty principle had something to do with observing, how just the act of looking at something changed its nature, but apparently that’s a whole different thing, called the observer effect. That’s the kind of confusion you get when your grasp of physics comes from made-for-TV science fiction movies named after the monster that eats the boyfriend in the second act. I wasn’t too clear on the implications of the uncertainty principle, but I understood the observer effect. Me and the boys observed things all the time — Eye-Oh observed _everything_ all the time — and we sure as hell changed what we saw if we thought it needed changing. “In cultures where many people live in the same house, or otherwise in close quarters, they develop coping mechanisms to deal with the lack of privacy,” the Liberator said. “They are capable not just of ignoring one another, but of genuinely _not noticing_ certain actions or behaviors of a personal and intimate nature. If everyone in the world could see everyone else, at will, we would all surely develop those same skills, do you see? Selective blindness for the greater social good.” “Sure, sure,” I said, and turned a page. “But for now it’s one-way. We can watch ordinary people, and see them[...]

By Ari Goelman Read by Veronica Giguere Discuss on our forums. Originally appeared in Strange Horizons All stories by Ari Goelman All stories read by Veronica Giguere Rated 13 and up for language Origin By Ari Goelman This is how I find out that I’m pregnant: I wake up to find Carter standing next to my bed. The fire escape door is open behind him, so the rising sun silhouettes his body. A human silhouette, albeit a little crisper than it should be, as his body bends the light towards him, powering up. Always powering up. “You’re pregnant,” he says. No particular emphasis on the words, which is as per usual, his voice being run through vocal cords that are not human, formed by lips that have blown hurricanes off course. It’s not that he doesn’t feel emotion, he tells me and anyone else who’ll listen. It’s just that he doesn’t have the same biologically hardwired ways of showing it. Usually I believe him. “What?” I rub my eyes, push up on one elbow. “That’s not possible.” He leans over me, and touches my stomach. “I was flying by your apartment, thinking about you. I heard the heartbeat.” “You told me that was impossible,” I say. He frowns and asks, “I told you it was impossible for me to hear the . . .” “Conceiving, Carter,” I say. “You told me it was impossible for us to conceive.” “I thought it was. I was wrong.” His frown deepens. “I could take care of it for you right now if you want.” I push Carter away from me and sit up. “For me, Carter?! You mean for us, right?” “Right. That’s what I meant.” A pause, then. “You’re freezing the bed, Margaret.” I glance down. Damn it. I’ve covered myself and the bed with a thin layer of ice. I take a deep breath and try to calm down before I do any permanent damage to my bed. It strikes me that this whole thing smells of Dr. U. “Any idea where Dr. U is these days?” I say. Carter shakes his head. “Ambrosius is reformed. This isn’t one of his plots, Margaret. You—we—have to decide what we’re going to do.” He winces. “Shoot. Bank robbery in Chicago. I have to go.” He’s gone before I can respond. “I should never date other supers,” I say, not for the first time. I put my hand on my stomach. Crap. I can barely keep a spider plant alive. There’s no way I’m ready to be a mother. I look back at the bed and wave my hand at it, heating the molecules surrounding it until the sheets are dry and warm. Then I call in sick to my norm-identity job at the advertising firm, and get back into bed. Of course I can’t sleep. After an hour of lying in bed, I get up and spend what’s left of the morning surfing the Internet for information on pregnancy. My Battalion cell phone rings a few times, but I don’t pick up. A few minutes before noon, I hear a tap on the window behind me and find Carter is hovering outside. “Come on in,” I say. A blur as he detours through the fire escape door in my bedroom and into my apartment. I know. It’s weird—he lets himself in while I’m asleep, but if I’m awake, he’ll always wait until I invite him in. He runs his hands through his hair. “Why weren’t you answering the phone?” I roll my eyes. If he wants, Carter can fly faster than the signal on a phone. “What, did the bank robbery in Chicago hold you up?” “It’s a tough conversation. I thought it might be easier for you to have it from a distance.” “Easier for me?” I briefly consider incinerating Carter’s costume. I’m pretty sure I could keep the heat contained, but if I’m wrong I’ll end up having to evacuate the building and pay the fire damages. Again. Still, I’m thinking it might be wor[...]

By Nathaniel Lee Read by Mat Weller Guest host: Dave Thompson of PodCastle Discuss on our forums. An Escape Pod Original! All stories by Nathaniel Lee All stories read by Mat Weller Rated 13 and up for violence Nemesis by Nathaniel Lee It was the middle of second-period Spanish when I felt my cell phone go off in my pocket. Three pulses, then two. That meant one of my alerts had hit paydirt. I’ve got newsfeeds filtered for keywords, pairing “emergency” and the names of every local school and business I could think of, plus I got Kenny from sixth period computer Science to cobble together a kind of hack on the actual first responders’ radio channels. If my phone had gone off, then there was trouble. If there was trouble, then the city needed Atom Boy. So where was he? Well, if I was in Spanish, then he was in History. No, wait, he’d dropped the AP course. Did he have some kind of math now instead? Crud. I had no idea. I’d lost our hero. “Miss Ramsey?” “Ahem!” “Uh, um, I mean, uh, Señora Ramsey?” ” Sí, Quentin?” “Yo, uh, yo poder uso el baño?” “Puedo. Y sí, se puede. Andale.” I clapped a hand over my pocket to keep my phone-bulge hidden and ran out of the classroom, careful to turn to the right as if I were heading for the boy’s room. A couple of months ago, that wouldn’t have been a bad idea; I’d discovered Adam’s secret when I walked in on him trying to get out of his tights at the end of fourth period. Which he’d missed, by the way, and I’d had to cover for him and pretend like I’d gotten a text from his mom about an emergency dental appointment. Nowadays, I made him use the locked room in the old elementary school building, next door to the art room. I had a key because Mr. Adelaide trusted me to use it only to work on my project. I felt bad about abusing that trust, but I figure helping a superhero save the world every week counts as some sort of civic duty. I checked there first. Adam was sitting at one of the old desks, his feet sticking out about a mile because it was designed for five-year-olds. He had his suit half on. His pale chest was bare, exposing those three wispy little curls that he was so proud of. He didn’t look up when I came in. “Adam? What’s wrong?” “I’ve lost my powers.” His voice was dull, his eyes unfocused. He sounded grim and deadly serious. “Oh, for crying out loud, Adam, we’ve been over this. Remember, last month? You thought it was some kind of lingering effect from the Recluse’s poison bite, but it was all psychosoma-whosit.” I ran in and snatched up his backpack, rummaging for his pill-box. “Have you been taking your Paxil?” “It made me gassy. I’m on a new one now. Starts with an ‘s,’ I think.” “Well, whatever it is, have you been taking it?” “No! I want to be me, not what some drug makes me.” I resisted the urge to punch him. It would be like hitting a steel wall, anyway. Instead, I found the box and opened it. The previous week’s pills were all still in their slots. White pills, red pills, blue pills. Patriotic. “Which one is it?” Adam shrugged. “Argh!” I pulled out one of each, thought about it, then made it two of each. He had superpowers. He could take it. “Here. Take these and get a move on.” Adam picked the pills up. “I told you, I lost my powers.” “You did not.” “Did so.” I glared at him. This called for drastic measures. I turned, picked up a wooden dowel from the supply table, closed my eyes, and whacked him over the head. I used my right hand this time; my left is my drawing hand, and I didn’t want to lose it for two weeks. The actinic flash was blinding even through my eyel[...]

By John Moran Read by Josh Roseman Discuss on our forums. An Escape Pod Original! All stories by John Moran All stories read by Josh Roseman Rated 13 and up for violence Next Time, Scales by John Moran “You’re too restless,” the lizard whispered into my brain. “And you’ve been at the reactor fuel again.” Marla slapped her prehensile tail onto the table, cracking its surface with her paralysing stinger and rattling the chess pieces. The blow echoed through the control room. “I hate it when you do that, Steven.” “Do what?” “Think you can read me.” I smiled. “Your underarm scales are pale, which means a supercharged diet or zero-gravity. As we haven’t been off-planet, it must be the food. Plus, your breath stinks of sulphur and your claws have white rings.” Marla pointed one crimson eye at the table, but kept the other on me. “Your move,” she said. “Give me time. Why do you think I’m restless?” “Because you’ve spent the last three weeks researching Loris, and done each patrol fully armed.” I glanced through the window, as if by chance I might catch our thief creeping up in plain view, but all I saw were two huge moons glowering over the ruined planet, its civilisation long-dead, part-excavated and full of secrets. I couldn’t let Marla know the site had me spooked, though. Her people had been hunters for a thousand years, and, through a quirk of fate, she believed in me. “Right.” I said. “Let’s patrol.” I got most of the way to the door before I realised what the click behind me had meant. “And you can put that piece back.” “Damn,” Marla said. The night was darker than usual, but I left off my flashlight and navigated by the excavation’s amber glow. After two months I’d learned the drill pretty well: walk three steps from the door before turning right, drop down through the first causeway, crunch my way over rubble and calcified ferns, pass beside three thousand year old shop windows, then into what people said were the temples of the spider-creatures that had once ruled Artemis. As I walked, Marla leapt from one wall to another like a shooting star. She looked beautiful, her scales shining like jewels. “Why you care so much about an urban legend?” she asked. “Because he’s a mystery. For two hundred years, Loris has been stealing artifacts, leaving only the letter L engraved onto the wall. Who wouldn’t be interested?” “He’s only human, Steven.” “I’m not sure. We didn’t have the technology to grow new bodies two centuries ago, so if he’s human, how has he lived so long?” Marla was silent for a while, then she said, “however good he is, I bet you’re better.” I walked away, unhappy with false praise. Instead, I ducked through the first arch, and stepped out below the huge, half-buried alien machine. Next to it, the laboratories and excavating machines looked forlorn and tiny. Forty archaeologists worked here in Artemis’ summer, but none had yet figured out what the machine did. “Perhaps you regret our melding?” Marla whispered, her voice quavering. “Not for a moment.” “Then why do you seek out complications?” “What do you mean?” “Loris, for instance. He’s just another hunt. So —” “— Marla?” “Yes?” “The machine’s active.” She appeared at my shoulder, scuttled up to the machine and crouched, eyes twitching in different directions. What had previously been a mountain of dark metal now held a tiny panel that shimmered like oil on water. As we watched, it faded to black. “Intriguing,” Marla said. “Still think Loris is a myth?” “I think we need to be careful.” She left in a blur, dancin[...]

By Robert Silverberg Read by Paul Tevis Discuss on our forums. Originally appeared in Galaxy Magazine All stories by Robert Silverberg All stories read by Paul Tevis Rated 15 and up Hawksbill Station by Robert Silverberg Barrett was the uncrowned King of Hawksbill Station. He had been there the longest; he had suffered the most; he had the deepest inner resources of strength. Before his accident, he had been able to whip any man in the place. Now he was a cripple, but he still had that aura of power that gave him command. When there were problems at the Station, they were brought to Barrett. That was axiomatic. He was the king. He ruled over quite a kingdom, too. In effect it was the whole world, pole to pole, meridian to meridian. For what it was worth. It wasn’t worth very much. Now it was raining again. Barrett shrugged himself to his feet in the quick, easy gesture that cost him an infinite amount of carefully concealed agony, and shuffled to the door of his hut. Rain made him impatient:. the pounding of those great greasy drops against the corrugated tin roof was enough even to drive a Jim Barrett loony. He nudged the door open. Standing in the doorway, Barrett looked out over his kingdom. Barren rock, nearly to the horizon. A shield of raw dolomite going on and on. Raindrops danced and bounced on that continental slab of rock. No trees. No grass. Behind Barrett’s hut lay the sea, gray and vast. The sky was gray too, even when it wasn’t raining. He hobbled out into the rain. Manipulating his crutch was getting to be a simple matter for him now. He leaned comfortably, letting his crushed left foot dangle. A rockslide had pinned him last year during a trip to the edge of the Inland Sea. Back home, Barrett would have been fitted with prosthetics and that would have been the end of it: a new ankle, a new instep, refurbished ligaments and tendons. But home was a billion years away, and home there’s no returning. The rain hit him hard. Barrett was a big man, six and a half feet tall, with hooded dark eyes, a jutting nose, a chin that was a monarch among chins. He had weighed two hundred fifty pounds in his prime, in the good old agitating days when he had carried banners and pounded out manifestos. But now he was past sixty and beginning to shrink a little, the skin getting loose around the places where the mighty muscles used to be. It was hard to keep your weight in Hawksbill Station. The food was nutritious, but it lacked intensity. A man got to miss steak. Eating brachiopod stew and trilobite hash wasn’t the same thing at all. Barrett was past all bitterness, though. That was another reason why the men regarded him as the leader. He didn’t scowl. He didn’t rant. He was resigned to his fate, tolerant of eternal exile, and so he could help the others get over that difficult, heart-clawing period of transition. A figure arrived, jogging through the rain: Norton. The doctrinaire Khrushchevist with the Trotskyite leanings. A small, excitable man who frequently appointed himself messenger whenever there was news at the Station. He sprinted toward Barrett’s hut, slipping and sliding over the naked rocks. Barrett held up a meaty hand. “Whoa, Charley. Take it easy or you’ll break your neck!” Norton halted in front of the hut. The rain had pasted the widely spaced strands of his brown hair to his skull. His eyes had the fixed, glossy look of fanaticism—or perhaps just astigmatism. He gasped for breath and staggered into the hut, shaking himself like a wet puppy. He obviously had run all the way from the main building of the Station, three hundred yards away—a long dash over rock that slippery. “Why are you standing around in the rain?” Norton asked. “To get wet,” said Barrett, following him inside. “What’s the news?” “The Hammer’s glowing. We’re getting company.” “How do you know it’s a live shipment?” “It’s been glowing for half an hour. That means they’re taking precautions. They’re sending a new prisoner. Anyway, no supplies[...]

By Ken Liu Read by Rajan Khanna Discuss on our forums. Originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction All stories by Ken Liu All stories read by Rajan Khanna Rated 10 and up  The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu One of my earliest memories starts with me sobbing. I refused to be soothed no matter what Mom and Dad tried. Dad gave up and left the bedroom, but Mom took me into the kitchen and sat me down at the breakfast table. “Kan, kan,” she said, as she pulled a sheet of wrapping paper from on top of the fridge. For years, Mom carefully sliced open the wrappings around Christmas gifts and saved them on top of the fridge in a thick stack. She set the paper down, plain side facing up, and began to fold it. I stopped crying and watched her, curious. She turned the paper over and folded it again. She pleated, packed, tucked, rolled, and twisted until the paper disappeared between her cupped hands. Then she lifted the folded-up paper packet to her mouth and blew into it, like a balloon. “Kan,” she said. “Laohu.” She put her hands down on the table and let go. A little paper tiger stood on the table, the size of two fists placed together. The skin of the tiger was the pattern on the wrapping paper, white background with red candy canes and green Christmas trees. I reached out to Mom’s creation. Its tail twitched, and it pounced playfully at my finger. “Rawrr-sa,” it growled, the sound somewhere between a cat and rustling newspapers. I laughed, startled, and stroked its back with an index finger. The paper tiger vibrated under my finger, purring. “Zhe jiao zhezhi,” Mom said. This is called origami. I didn’t know this at the time, but Mom’s kind was special. She breathed into them so that they shared her breath, and thus moved with her life. This was her magic. # Dad had picked Mom out of a catalog. One time, when I was in high school, I asked Dad about the details. He was trying to get me to speak to Mom again. He had signed up for the introduction service back in the spring of 1973. Flipping through the pages steadily, he had spent no more than a few seconds on each page until he saw the picture of Mom. I’ve never seen this picture. Dad described it: Mom was sitting in a chair, her side to the camera, wearing a tight green silk cheongsam. Her head was turned to the camera so that her long black hair was draped artfully over her chest and shoulder. She looked out at him with the eyes of a calm child. “That was the last page of the catalog I saw,” he said. The catalog said she was eighteen, loved to dance, and spoke good English because she was from Hong Kong. None of these facts turned out to be true. He wrote to her, and the company passed their messages back and forth. Finally, he flew to Hong Kong to meet her. “The people at the company had been writing her responses. She didn’t know any English other than ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye.’” What kind of woman puts herself into a catalog so that she can be bought? The high school me thought I knew so much about everything. Contempt felt good, like wine. Instead of storming into the office to demand his money back, he paid a waitress at the hotel restaurant to translate for them. “She would look at me, her eyes halfway between scared and hopeful, while I spoke. And when the girl began translating what I said, she’d start to smile slowly.” He flew back to Connecticut and began to apply for the papers for her to come to him. I was born a year later, in the Year of the Tiger. # At my request, Mom also made a goat, a deer, and a water buffalo out of wrapping paper. They would run around the living room while Laohu chased after them, growling. When he caught them he would press down until the air went out of them and they became just flat, folded-up pieces of paper. I would then have to blow into them to re-inflate them so they could r[...]

Since we’ve had trouble with ebook stuff for a couple of months, we’re introducing Soundproof EP Digests! Here is the digest for Q1, nearly all the stories from January, February, and March, as well as some key blog posts. The digest for Q2 will be out soon (as soon as Q2 is over)! Thanks for your patience. Mobi version PDF version

If you listened to this back when it aired, then you’ve heard it, but I’m reposting it here for the benefit of people who want to experience all the Hugo nominees in a row! By Nancy Fulda Read by Marguerite Kenner Discuss on our forums. First appeared in Asimov’s All stories by Nancy Fulda All stories read by Marguerite Kenner Movement By Nancy Fulda It is sunset. The sky is splendid through the panes of my bedroom window; billowing layers of cumulous blazing with refracted oranges and reds. I think if only it weren’t for the glass, I could reach out and touch the cloudscape, perhaps leave my own trail of turbulence in the swirling patterns that will soon deepen to indigo. But the window is there, and I feel trapped. Behind me my parents and a specialist from the neurological research institute are sitting on folding chairs they’ve brought in from the kitchen, quietly discussing my future. They do not know I am listening. They think that, because I do not choose to respond, I do not notice they are there. “Would there be side effects?” My father asks. In the oppressive heat of the evening, I hear the quiet Zzzapof his shoulder laser as it targets mosquitoes. The device is not as effective as it was two years ago: the mosquitoes are getting faster. My father is a believer in technology, and that is why he contacted the research institute. He wants to fix me. He is certain there is a way. “There would be no side effects in the traditional sense,”the specialist says. I like him even though his presence makes me uncomfortable. He chooses his words very precisely. “We’re talking about direct synaptic grafting, not drugs. The process is akin to bending a sapling to influence the shape of the grown tree. We boost the strength of key dendritic connections and allow brain development to continue naturally. Young neurons are very malleable.” “And you’ve done this before?” I do not have to look to know my mother is frowning. My mother does not trust technology. She has spent the last ten years trying to coax me into social behavior by gentler means. She loves me, but she does not understand me. She thinks I cannot be happy unless I am smiling and laughing and running along the beach with other teenagers. “The procedure is still new, but our first subject was a young woman about the same age as your daughter. Afterwards, she integrated wonderfully. She was never an exceptional student, but she began speaking more and had an easier time following classroom procedure.” “What about Hannah’s…talents?”my mother asks. I know she is thinking about my dancing; also the way I remember facts and numbers without trying. “Would she lose those?” The specialist’s voice is very firm, and I like the way he delivers the facts without trying to cushion them. “It’s a matter of trade-offs, Mrs. Didier. The brain cannot be optimized for everything at once. Without treatment, some children like Hannah develop into extraordinary individuals. They become famous, change the world, learn to integrate their abilities into the structures of society. But only a very few are that lucky. The others never learn to make friends, hold a job, or live outside of institutions.” “And… with treatment?” “I cannot promise anything, but the chances are very good that Hannah will lead a normal life.” I have pressed my hand to the window. The glass feels cold and smooth beneath my palm. It appears motionless although I know at the molecular level it is flowing. Its atoms slide past each other slowly, so slowly; a transformation no less inevitable for its tempo. I like glass — also stone — because it does not change very quickly. I will be dead, and so will all of my relatives and their descendants, before the deformations will be visible without a microscope. I feel my mother’s hands on my shoulders. She has come up behind me and now she turns me so that I must either look in her eyes or pull away. I lo[...]

By Mike Resnick Read by Patrick Bazile Discuss on our forums. Originally appeared in Asimov’s All stories by Mike Resnick All stories read by Patrick Bazile Rated 10 and up The Homecoming by Mike Resnick I don’t know which bothers me more, my lumbago or my arthritis. One day it’s one, one day it’s the other. They can cure cancer and transplant every damned organ in your body; you’d think they could find some way to get rid of aches and pains. Let me tell you, growing old isn’t for sissies. I remember that I was having a typical dream. Well, typical for me, anyway. I was climbing the four steps to my front porch, only when I got to the third step there were six more, so I climbed them and then there were ten more, and it went on and on. I’d probably still be climbing them if the creature hadn’t woke me up. It stood next to my bed, staring down at me. I blinked a couple of times, trying to focus my eyes, and stared back, sure this was just an extension of my dream. It was maybe six feet tall, its skin a glistening, almost metallic silver, with multi-faceted bright red eyes like an insect. Its ears were pointed and batlike, and moved independently of its head and each other. Its mouth jutted out a couple of inches like some kind of tube, and looked like it was only good for sucking fluids. Its arms were slender, with no hint of the muscles required to move them, and its fingers were thin and incredibly elongated. It was as weird a nightmare figure as I’d dreamed up in years. Finally it spoke, in a voice that sounded more like a set of chimes than anything else. “Hello, Dad,” it said. That’s when I knew I was awake. “So this is what you look like,” I growled, swinging my feet over the side of the bed and sitting up. “What the hell are you doing here?” “I’m glad to see you too,” he replied. “You didn’t answer my question,” I said, feeling around for my slippers. “I heard about Mom – not from you, of course – and I wanted to see her once more before the end.” “Can you see through those things?” I asked, indicating his eyes. “Better than you can.” Big surprise. Hell, everyone can see better than I can. “How did you get in here anyway?” I said as I got to my feet. The furnace was as old and tired as I was and there was a chill in the air, so I put on my robe. “You haven’t changed the front door’s code words since I left.” He looked around the room. “You haven’t painted the place either.” “The lock’s supposed to check your retinagram or read your DNA or something.” “It did. They haven’t changed.” I looked him up and down. “The hell they haven’t.” He seemed about to reply, then thought better of it. Finally he said, “How is she?” “She has her bad days and her worse days,” I answered. “She’s the old Julia maybe two or three times a week for a minute or two, but that’s all. She can still speak, and she still recognizes me.” I paused. “She won’t recognize you, of course, but nobody else you ever knew will either.” “How long has she been like this?” “Maybe a year.” “You should have told me,” he said. “Why?” I asked. “You gave up being her son and became whatever it is you are now.” “I’m still her son, and you had my contact information.” I stared at him. “Well, you’re not my son, not anymore.” “I’m sorry you feel that way,” he replied. Suddenly he sniffed the air. “It smells stale.” “Tired old houses are like tired old men,” I said. “They don’t function on all cylinders.” “You could move to a smaller, newer place.” “This house and me, we’ve grown old together. Not everyone wants to move to Alpha whatever-the-hell-it-is.” He looked around. “Where is she?” “In your old room,” I said. He turned, walked out into the hall. “Haven’t you replaced that thing yet?” he asked, indicating an old wall table. “It was scarred and wobbly when I still lived here.” “It’s just a table. It holds whatever I put on it. That’s all it has to do.” He looked up at the ceiling. “The paint’s peeling too.” “I’m too old to do it myself, and painters cost mon[...]

By E. Lily Yu Read by Mur Lafferty Discuss on our forums. Originally appeared in Clarkesworld All stories by E. Lily Yu All stories read by Mur Lafferty Rated 10 and up The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees By E. Lily Yu For longer than anyone could remember, the village of Yiwei had worn, in its orchards and under its eaves, clay-colored globes of paper that hissed and fizzed with wasps. The villagers maintained an uneasy peace with their neighbors for many years, exercising inimitable tact and circumspection. But it all ended the day a boy, digging in the riverbed, found a stone whose balance and weight pleased him. With this, he thought, he could hit a sparrow in flight. There were no sparrows to be seen, but a paper ball hung low and inviting nearby. He considered it for a moment, head cocked, then aimed and threw. Much later, after he had been plastered and soothed, his mother scalded the fallen nest until the wasps seething in the paper were dead. In this way it was discovered that the wasp nests of Yiwei, dipped in hot water, unfurled into beautifully accurate maps of provinces near and far, inked in vegetable pigments and labeled in careful Mandarin that could be distinguished beneath a microscope. The villagers’ subsequent incursions with bee veils and kettles of boiling water soon diminished the prosperous population to a handful. Commanded by a single stubborn foundress, the survivors folded a new nest in the shape of a paper boat, provisioned it with fallen apricots and squash blossoms, and launched themselves onto the river. Browsing cows and children fled the riverbanks as they drifted downstream, piping sea chanteys. At last, forty miles south from where they had begun, their craft snagged on an upthrust stick and sank. Only one drowned in the evacuation, weighed down with the remains of an apricot. They reconvened upon a stump and looked about themselves. “It’s a good place to land,” the foundress said in her sweet soprano, examining the first rough maps that the scouts brought back. There were plenty of caterpillars, oaks for ink galls, fruiting brambles, and no signs of other wasps. A colony of bees had hived in a split oak two miles away. “Once we are established we will, of course, send a delegation to collect tribute. “We will not make the same mistakes as before. Ours is a race of explorers and scientists, cartographers and philosophers, and to rest and grow slothful is to die. Once we are established here, we will expand.” It took two weeks to complete the nurseries with their paper mobiles, and then another month to reconstruct the Great Library and fill the pigeonholes with what the oldest cartographers could remember of their lost maps. Their comings and goings did not go unnoticed. An ambassador from the beehive arrived with an ultimatum and was promptly executed; her wings were made into stained-glass windows for the council chamber, and her stinger was returned to the hive in a paper envelope. The second ambassador came with altered attitude and a proposal to divide the bees’ kingdom evenly between the two governments, retaining pollen and water rights for the bees—”as an acknowledgment of the preexisting claims of a free people to the natural resources of a common territory,” she hummed. The wasps of the council were gracious and only divested the envoy of her sting. She survived just long enough to deliver her account to the hive. The third ambassador arrived with a ball of wax on the tip of her stinger and was better received. “You understand, we are not refugees applying for recognition of a token territorial sovereignty,” the foundress said, as attendants served them nectars in paper horns, “nor are we negotiating with you as equal states. Those were the assumptions of your late predecessors. They were mistaken.” “I trust I will do better,” the diplomat said stiffly. She was older than[...]

By S. Hutson Blount Read by Mat Weller Discuss on our forums. Originally appeared in The Fifth Dimension All stories by S. Hutson Blount All stories read by Mat Weller Rated 15 and up for language and violent imagery This episode has been brought to you by Audible. Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/escapepod for a free trial membership*. Audible® Free Trial Details * Get your first 30 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one credit. In almost all cases, one credit equals one audiobook. After your 30 day trial, your membership will automatically renew each month for just $14.95, billed to the credit card you used when you registered with Audible. With your membership, you will receive one credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. If you cancel your membership before your free trial period is up, you will not be charged. Thereafter, cancel anytime, effective the next billing cycle. See the complete terms and policy applicable to Audible memberships. Certus per Bellum (Decided by War) By S. Hutson Blount “It’s quiet outside,” Nohaile said, trying to find a comfortable way to sit in his armor suit. “Are you sure it’s started?” “It’ll get plenty loud,” said the girl. She was armored only in a ratty sweatshirt and a patched bib coverall. She’d entered the bunker with a vest and some sensible-looking boots, but promptly removed them. Her bare feet made her look about twelve years old. “For right now,” she continued after some rapid two-thumb typing on her hand console, “we got time to kill.” “Miz Bamboo, do you think we can win?” Nohaile had a matching helmet to go with his armor. He felt foolish either leaving it off or putting it on, so it worried in his hands. The girl laughed a little. It didn’t reach her eyes. “There’s no ‘miz.’ Bamboo is my handle, not my name.” “I’m sorry.” “No worries. And yeah, we can win. The other guy hired cheap.” Bamboo kept looking at the display on her console, checking through her seemingly-infinite pockets and producing unidentifiable items to inspect and disappear again. Everything she carried seemed dirty but functional. Nohaile looked down at his shiny armor suit and was ashamed. “So, when do I get the story?” Bamboo asked. “I thought you said you didn’t care about the circumstances of the lawsuit.” She’d been very clear on that point. Rude, even. “I don’t. But every client has to tell. You care enough about whatever this disagreement is to put your ass on the line. You might as well get it over with.” “I don’t want to burden you while you’re…” He gestured at her control pad, blinking and murmuring to itself on the concrete floor beside her. She’d produced a handgun hidden somewhere in that shapeless coverall, a considerable-looking piece of artillery. To Nohaile’s inexperienced eyes, it looked like it would break her wrists if fired. Bamboo stopped disassembling it and looked at him more pointedly. “Where did you say you were from, again?” “Baltimore,” Nohaile said. “Before that, Dire Dawa. In Ethiopia,” he added, because he knew he would have to. “They grow ‘em polite in Ethiopia, I guess. Burden away. When something happens, I promise I’ll take care of it.” She grinned at him, freckles behind straw-colored bangs. Nohaile set his streamlined, buglike helmet beside him. “It was a patent infringement case. Originally, I mean. I had tried to interest VesterDyne in my extrusion bearing process. Shortly after the first round of presentations, they cancelled the exploratory contract. They said they’d found another source with a similar product. I knew it couldn’t be similar, I had a patent.” Bamboo test-fit[...]

By Lavie Tidhar Read by Alasdair Stuart Discuss on our forums. Originally appeared in Strange Horizons All stories by Lavie Tidhar All stories read by Alasdair Stuart Rated 17 and up for language and sexual imagery This episode has been brought to you by Audible. Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/escapepod for a free trial membership*. Audible® Free Trial Details * Get your first 30 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one credit. In almost all cases, one credit equals one audiobook. After your 30 day trial, your membership will automatically renew each month for just $14.95, billed to the credit card you used when you registered with Audible. With your membership, you will receive one credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. If you cancel your membership before your free trial period is up, you will not be charged. Thereafter, cancel anytime, effective the next billing cycle. See the complete terms and policy applicable to Audible memberships. Aphrodisia By Lavie Tidhar It began, in a way, with the midget hunchback tuk-tuk driver. It was a night in the cool season… The stars shone like cold hard semi-precious stones overhead. Shadows moved across the face of the moon. The beer place was emptying – Ban Watnak where fat mosquitoes buzzed, lazily, across neon-lit faces. Thai pop playing too loudly, cigarette smoke rising the remnants of ghosts, straining to escape Earth’s atmosphere. In the sky flying lanterns looked like tracer bullets, like fireflies. The midget hunchback tuk-tuk driver said, ‘Where are you going -?’ mainlining street speed and ancient wisdom. Tone: ‘Where are you going?’ The driver sat on the elevated throne of his vehicle and contemplated the question as if his life depended on it. ‘Over there,’ he said, gesturing. Then, grudgingly – ‘Not far.’ But it was far enough for us. Tone and Bejesus and me made three: Tone with the hafmek body, all spray-painted metal chest and arms, Victorian-style goggles hiding his eyes, a scarf in the colours of a vanished football team around his neck – it was cold. It was Earth cold, not real – there was no dial you could turn to make it go away. Bejesus not speaking, a fragile low-gravity body writhing with nervous energy despite the unaccustomed weight – Bejesus in love with this planet Earth, a long way away from his rock home in space. Tone, in Asteroid Pidgin: ‘Yumi go lukaotem ol gel.’ ‘No girls,’ I said. Tone smirked. Bejesus danced on the spot, nervous, excited, it was hard to tell. Tone said: ‘Boy, girl, all same.’ Bejesus, to the driver: ‘I dig your body work, man.’ Tone shaking his head. ‘Dumb ignorant rock-worm,’ he said, but with affection. The hunchback midget tuk-tuk driver grinned, said, ‘You come with me, no pay. Free tuk-tuk!’ ‘Best offer we’re going to get,’ Tone said, and I nodded. Bejesus passed me a pill. I dry-swallowed. The floating lanterns seemed larger then, like warm eyes blinking high above. ‘Let’s go!’ I said. My heart was beating too fast. ‘Hungry and horny and a long way from home,’ Tone said – a bad poet in hafmek armour. We went.  # Piled at the back of a solar-powered tuk-tuk at night, Aphrodisia tunes blaring out, blurring my careful composure – Aphrodisia, the Upload Deity, queen of no-space – Aphrodisia who loved me and fucked me and sang to me and left me – left everything and everyone behind. She was everywhere now, goddess bitch, and I cried and the tears were multicoloured in rust and acid-rain. Bejesus, the tentacle-junkie, wrapped his arms around me, and even Tone patted me on the back, there, there, awkwardly. I shrugged them off. Nest-brothers, we shared a hub in Tong Yun City years before, the asteroid-worm and the orbital hafmek and me – shared food and drugs and sex and minds – but we were younger then, on Mars. Earth is different to anything you can imagine. Picture a globe, a blue-green world… more base-level humans than anywhere [...]

By Catherynne M. Valente Read by Marguerite Croft Discuss on our forums. Originally appeared in Federations All stories by Catherynne M. Valente All stories read by Marguerite Croft Rated 13 and up simply because kids likely won’t be into a story about wine. Golubash (Wine-Blood-War-Story) by Catherynne M. Valente The difficulties of transporting wine over interstellar distances are manifold. Wine is, after all, like a child. It can _bruise_. It can suffer trauma—sometimes the poor creature can recover, sometimes it must be locked up in a cellar until it learns to behave itself. Sometimes it is irredeemable. I ask that you greet the seven glasses before you tonight not as simple fermented grapes, but as the living creatures they are, well-brought up, indulged but not coddled, punished when necessary, shyly seeking your approval with clasped hands and slicked hair. After all, they have come so very far for the chance to be loved. Welcome to the first public tasting of Domaine Zhaba. My name is Phylloxera Nanut, and it is the fruit of my family’s vines that sits before you. Please forgive our humble venue—surely we could have wished for something grander than a scorched pre-war orbital platform, but circumstances, and the constant surveillance of Chatêau Marubouzu-Debrouillard and their soldiers have driven us to extremity. Mind the loose electrical panels and pull up a reactor husk—they are inert, I assure you. Spit onto the floor—a few new stains will never be noticed. As every drop about to pass your lips is wholly, thoroughly, enthusiastically illegal, we shall not stand on ceremony. Shall we begin? 2583 Sud-Cotê-du-Golubash (New Danube) The colonial ship _Quintessence of Dust_ first blazed across the skies of Avalokitesvara two hundred years before I was born, under the red stare of Barnard’s Star, our second solar benefactor. Her plasma sails streamed kilometers long, like sheltering wings. Simone Nanut was on that ship. She, alongside a thousand others, looked down on their new home from  that great height, the single long, unfathomably wide river that circumscribed the globe, the golden mountains prickled with cobalt alders, the deserts streaked with pink salt. How I remember the southern coast of Golubash, I played there, and dreamed there was a girl on the invisible opposite shore, and that her family, too, made wine and cowered like us in the shadow of the Asociación. My friends, in your university days did you not study the rolls of the first colonials, did you not memorize their weight-limited cargo, verse after verse of spinning wheels, bamboo seeds, lathes, vials of tailored bacteria, as holy writ? Then perhaps you will recall Simone Nanut and her folly, that her pitiful allotment of cargo was taken up by the clothes on her back and a tangle of ancient Maribor grapevine, its roots tenderly wrapped and watered. Mad Slovak witch they all thought her, patting those tortured, battered vines into the gritty yellow soil of the Golubash basin. Even the Hyphens were sure the poor things would fail. There were only four of them on all of Avalokitesvara, immensely tall, their watery triune faces catching the old red light of Barnard’s flares, their innumerable arms fanned out around their terribly thin torsos like peacock’s tails. Not for nothing was the planet named for a Hindu god with eleven faces and a thousand arms. The colonists called them Hyphens for their way of talking, and for the thinness of their bodies. They did not understand then what you must all know now, rolling your eyes behind your sleeves as your hostess relates ancient history, that each of the four Hyphens was a quarter of the world in a single body, that they were a mere outcropping of the vast intelligences which made up the ecology of Avalokitesvara, like one of our thumbs or a pair of lips. Golubash I knew. To know more than one Hyphen in a lifetime is rare. Officially, the great river is still called the New Danube, but eventually my[...]