Archive for July, 2009

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EP209: On the Eyeball Floor

 
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by Tina Connolly

read by Norm Sherman

Closing song by Andrew Richardson

We’ve got robotic arms to put the eyeballs in. Metal clamps to pulldown the eyelids. Tony, on Four, keeps the grease vats filled. Oil squirts nineteen times a minute to keep the eye sockets from squeaking. Tiny slick needles stitch on the lashes, while millions of different irises get stamped in magenta and yellow and cyan, so no two will ever be alike, just like us.

All that, and they can’t engineer anything—or anyone—to take over my job. People in Organs go home coated with grease and vinegar; people in Bones have lost fingers to the machines, and still nobody wants the job where a hundred half-live cyborgs line up in rows, twitching when your back is turned. Waiting for someone to talk to them, feel for them. Transcend them to life.

There are safety signs around the factory. “Scrub Up.” “Know Thyself.” “Don’t Blink.” That last is the best piece of advice, here on the eyeball floor.

Rated PG for for angry awakening sentience and some swearing.

Jul 30, 2009 | 13 comments View Post
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EP208: An Almanac for the Alien Invaders

 
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By Merrie Haskell

Read by Sarah Tolbert

Previously appeared in Asimov’s.

In January, there will be an annular solar eclipse, with the path of annularity moving through the Indian Ocean and into Sumatra and Borneo. Two days later, aliens will invade Earth.

No spaceships will loom large in blue skies, nor hover over our cities. At night, though, when we see blinking dots of light near the horizon, as small and pale as any star, we’ll think they’re planes or satellites of human origin. They won’t be. These are alien ships, come for conquest.

That is all we can see. What we hear is just as faint and difficult to resolve: we hear rumors. Or rather, one persistent rumor: “the aliens want volunteers.”

Naturally, I and my junior faculty friends need to drink quantities of beer to discuss this in detail. I expound that it’s a hoax.

Rated PG-13 for adult concepts and alien recruiters.

Jul 23, 2009 | 26 comments View Post
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EP207: Wonder Maul Doll

 
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By Kameron Hurley
Read by Kim the Comic Book Goddess

Appeared originally in From the Trenches

We set down in Pekoi as part of the organics inquisition team, still stinking of the last city. We’re all muscle. Not brains. The brains are out eating at the foreigners’ push downtown, and they don’t care if we whore around the tourist dregs half the night so long as somebody’s sober enough to haul them out come morning. When the brains aren’t eating, they’re pretending to give us directions in the field, telling us where to sniff out organics. They’re writing reports about
how dangerous Pekoi is to the civilized world.

We’re swapping off some boy in a backwater push the locals cleared out for us. We’re sitting around a low table. I pass off another card to Kep. Luce swaps out a suit. She has to sit on one leg to lean over the table. It’s hot in the low room, so humid that moths clutter aroundour feet, too heavy to fly.

The boy’s making little mewling sounds again. Somebody should shut him up, but not me. This is my hand. I’m ahead.

Rated R for violence and sexual situations.

Jul 19, 2009 | 19 comments View Post
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EP206: Rogue Farm

 
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By Charles Stross
Recorded at Balticon 43, May 23, 2009
Read by:Joe -Jared Axelrod (of The Voice of Free Planet X), Maddie - J.R. Blackwell (of Voices of Tomorrow), The Farm - Evo Terra and Sheila Dee (of Evo at 11, et al.), Maddie - J.R. Blackwell (of Voices of Tomorrow), Brenda the Barkeep - Dee Reed (of Nobilis Erotica), Wendy the Rat - Laura Burns, Art the Boy Toy - John Cmar, Bob the Dog - Earl Newton (of Stranger Things), Narrator - Stephen Eley.
Discuss on our forums.
All stories by Charles Stross
All stories read by John Cmar, JR Blackwell, Evo Terra, Sheila DeeJared Axelrod, Dee Reed, Laura Burns, Earl Newton, Stephen Eley

Special Thanks To:
Paul Fischer (of The Balticon Podcast) for instigating and organizing
Nobilis Reed (of Nobilis Erotica) for engineering

First appeared in Live Without a Net, ed. Lou Anders
Now available in Wireless, by Charles Stross

“Buggerit, I don’t have time for this,” Joe muttered. The stable waiting for the small herd of cloned spidercows cluttering up the north paddock was still knee-deep in manure, and the tractor seat wasn’t getting any warmer while he shivered out here waiting for Maddie to come and sort this thing out. It wasn’t a big herd, but it was as big as his land and his labour could manage – the big biofabricator in the shed could assemble mammalian livestock faster than he could feed them up and sell them with an honest HAND-RAISED NOT VAT-GROWN label.

“What do you want with us?” he yelled up at the gently buzzing farm.

“Brains, fresh brains for baby Jesus,” crooned the farm in a warm contralto, startling Joe half out of his skin. “Buy my brains!” Half a dozen disturbing cauliflower shapes poked suggestively out of the farms’ back then retracted again, coyly.

“Don’t want no brains around here,” Joe said stubbornly, his fingers whitening on the stock of the shotgun. “Don’t want your kind round here, neither. Go away.”

Rated PG for strong language, chemical violence, and drug-abusing dogs.

Jul 11, 2009 | 33 comments View Post
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EP 200: All You Zombies

 
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By Robert A. Heinlein
Read by Steve Eley

I was polishing a brandy snifter when the Unmarried Mother came in. I noted the time—10:17 P. M. zone five, or eastern time, November 7th, 1970. Temporal agents always notice time and date; we must.

The Unmarried Mother was a man twenty–five years old, no taller than I am, childish features and a touchy temper. I didn’t like his looks—I never had—but he was a lad I was here to recruit, he was my boy. I gave him my best barkeep’s smile.

Maybe I’m too critical. He wasn’t swish; his nickname came from what he always said when some nosy type asked him his line: “I’m an unmarried mother.” If he felt less than murderous he would add: “at four cents a word. I write confession stories.”

If he felt nasty, he would wait for somebody to make something of it. He had a lethal style of infighting, like a female cop—reason I wanted him. Not the only one.

He had a load on, and his face showed that he despised people more than usual. Silently I poured a double shot of Old Underwear and left the bottle. He drank it, poured another.

Jul 02, 2009 | 32 comments View Post