Category: 13 and Up

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EP331: Devour

 
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By Ferrett Steinmetz
Read by Dave Thompson
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An Escape Pod Original!
All stories by Ferrett Steinmetz
All stories read by Dave Thompson
Rated 15 and up for language, brief sexual imagery, brief violent imagery

Devour
By Ferrett Steinmetz

“I want some water,” Sergio says.  The bicycle chains clank as he strains to
put his feet on the floor.

Sergio designed his own restraints.  He had at least fifteen plumbers on his
payroll who could have installed the chains – but Sergio’s never trusted
anything he didn’t build with his own hands.  So he deep-drilled gear mounts
into our guest room’s floral wallpaper, leaving me to string greased roller
chains through the cast-iron curlicues of the canopy bed.

“You’re doing well, Bruce,” he lied, trying to smile – but his lips were
already desiccated, pulled too tight at the edges.  Not his lips at all.

I slowed him down; I had soft lawyer’s hands, more used to keyboards than
Allen wrenches.  Yet we both knew it would be the last time we could touch
each other.  So I asked for help I didn’t need, and he took my hands in his
to guide the chains through what he referred to as “the marionette mounts.”

Feb 09, 2012 | 0 comments View Post
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EP330: The Ghost of a Girl Who Never Lived

 
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By Keffy R. M. Kehrli
Read by Mur Lafferty
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Originally appeared in InterGalactic Medicine Show.
All stories by Keffy R. M. Kehrli
All stories read by Mur Lafferty
Rated 13 and up

The Ghost of a Girl Who Never Lived
By Keffy R. M. Kehrli

I am Sara’s second body.

My first memory is of Sara’s resurrection in a room that smelled of cotton balls and hydrogen peroxide.

“That’s funny,” a man said.

The world felt raw, sore, and new. Under my back, my butt, my fingertips, I could feel every thread in the sheets beneath me. The blanket over my stomach scratched. Padded straps crossed my arms.

“What’s funny?” This voice was a woman’s.

“Got another error message,” the man answered. “Have you ever seen that one before?”

I felt the sheets with Sara’s fingers, and the texture conjured memories I didn’t have. I should have known where I was and what I was there for, but I couldn’t catch hold of the fleeting thoughts. In the dim light of the room I could only see the ceiling.

“Let me see.” I heard a frenzied clicking. “It failed twice?”

Feb 02, 2012 | 0 comments View Post
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EP328: Surviving the eBookalypse

 
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By Randy Henderson
Read by Roberto Suarez
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An Escape Pod Original!
All stories by Randy Henderson
All stories read by Roberto Suarez
Rated 13-and-up for language.

Surviving the eBookalypse
by Randy Henderson

I entered the City Public Library wearing my plastic replica chainmail and sword, and my suede “book jacket” with a laminated author’s license clipped to the collar.

Before me stood a fully automated checkout kiosk for scheduling author recitals. The library floor beyond that was filled with neat rows of author cubicles, each with a desk and chair. Most were occupied. The air was filled with the soft tickity-ticking of keyboards, and the smells of coffee, “New Book” scented air fresheners, and Cup o’ Soup. Heads popped up over cubicle walls in response to the clacking of the door, then disappeared again when they saw I was no customer or potential patron.

I understood their disappointed expressions too well. This was not at all where I thought I would be two years after publishing my first e-book.

A woman’s smile caught my attention. It was like cherry-haloed sunshine, floating between her neon blue hair and her black lace dress. She emerged from a cube in the Romance section, walked up to me, leaned in close and sniffed at the air. Then she said with the hint of a Mexican accent, “I smell a transfer from Bainbridge library, no? An MFA boy, if I’m not mistaken?”

“That obvious?” I asked.

“Lucky guess.” She laughed, and flicked my author’s license. “Says so right here.”

Jan 19, 2012 | 1 comment View Post
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EP326: Flash Fiction Special

 
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Poppies and Chrome by Sylvia Hiven
Rabbi Aaron Meets Satan by Tim Lieder
Fine-Tuning the Universe by Merrie Haskell
narrated by Mat Weller, author Richard E. Dansky, and Mur Lafferty
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Appropriate for teens and up due to erotic imagery and language.

Jan 06, 2012 | 0 comments View Post
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EP325: Bad Dogs Escape

 
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By James Patrick Kelly
Cast:

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An Escape Pod Original!
All stories by James Patrick Kelly
All stories read by AB Kovacs, Pamela L. Quevillon, John Cmar

Appropriate for older teens and up due to erotic imagery and war criminal comeuppance.

Bad Dogs Escape
By James Patrick Kelly

/SFX/ CLOCK TICKING, FADE TO

/SFX/ DOGS BARKING IN DISTANCE

SAM: Like?

BECCA: Like.

SAM: (growls like a dog, sexy)

BECCA: Like?

SAM: Like.

/SFX/ DOGS BARKING IN DISTANCE

BECCA: Lick?

SAM: (giggles) Like.

BECCA: (howls like a dog)

/SFX/ DOGS BARKING CLOSER

SAM: They’re busy today.

BECCA: Man’s best friend.

(SAM and BECCA laugh)

MEL: (in distance) Help!

SAM: Uh-oh.

BECCA: Company.

Dec 29, 2011 | 0 comments View Post
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EP317: Boxed In

 
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By Marc-Anthony Taylor
Read by Barry Haworth
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First appeared in British Fantasy Society Winter Journal 2010/2011
All stories by Marc-Anthony Taylor
All stories read by Barry Haworth

This one isn’t for the kids, because of references to sex workers and acts.

Boxed In
by Marc-Anthony Taylor

My sister had me boxed when I was four. She said she would have had it done to herself but she didn’t want to risk losing me, that it was the only way. I think she just hated the idea of renting her body out to the rich folk in the domes. Don’t get me wrong, she did good by me, I didn’t have to work till I was nine and in that time she studied hard and became a data-pimp herself.

It was the only way she could keep us housed and fed after mum and dad had died.

It must have been hard for her, if mum and dad had made it she might have made something of herself. If she hadn’t have had to look after me she would probably be in a dome herself by now.

She once told me she had big plans; that she wanted to make things better. My only plan was to make enough cash to get us both out of the business.

I never noticed the tiny implant at the base of my skull, the nano circuitry must be some of the best though, the tattoo circling my right eye is almost perfect.

Kara controlled who, what, when and where. She made sure we got paid, and that I didn’t do anything too bad. She was a clever cookie.

My sister looked after me. She did good.

Nov 03, 2011 | 0 comments View Post
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EP316: Site Fourteen

 
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By Laura Anne Gilman
Read by Mat Weller
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First appeared in ReVISIONS from Daw Boooks
All stories by Laura Anne Gilman
All stories read by Mat Weller

This one isn’t for the kids, because of language and heavy content.

Site Fourteen

“Nereus Shuttle Four to Gateway Station, you have control.”

Robinachec nodded confirmation as though the pilot could see him.  ”Roger that.  Bringing you in.” Palming the flat-topped lever, I watched as he moved it gently back towards him, pulling the bullet-shaped transport into the shed, an external framework of metal beams just large enough to hold two minisubs, or one shuttle.

Robinechec has nightmares sometimes about something going wrong here.  Forget the fact that it’s the safest maneuver in the entire procedure; he still talks about waking up in a cold sweat because he screwed up.

You’d never know it to watch him.

When you’re six hundred feet down – well below the twilight zone, in the bathypelagic or ‘deep water’ zone– your perception shifts.  Nothing as arcane as the chemical balance in your brain changing, although there’s some of that, too.  No, it’s more the realization, slow sinking into your brain, that there’s not damn-all between you and dying but a duraplas shield and some canned oxy-blend.

You realize that, really process the concept, and you’re okay.  If you can’t, you get the screamin’ meemies and they cart you Topside where you spend the rest of your life on solid dirt, carefully looking anywhere but ocean-ward.

Not everyone’s cut out to be an aquanaut. No shame to it.  Even now, only about a third of the applicants make it into training, and more than half of them dry out before graduation.

Oct 27, 2011 | 0 comments View Post
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EP311: The Faithful Soldier, Prompted

 
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By Saladin Ahmed
Read by Rajan Khanna
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First appeared in Apex Magazine
All stories by Saladin Ahmed
All stories read by Rajan Khanna

Special thanks to Hugo award winning Starship Sofa for allowing us to use Rajan Khanna’s narration that originally ran November 17, 2010.

Rated appropriate for 15 and older due to language.

The Faithful Soldier, Prompted
by Saladin Ahmed

If I die on this piece-of-shit road, Lubna’s chances die with me. Ali leveled his shotgun at the growling tiger. In the name of God, who needs no credit rating, let me live! Even when he’d been a soldier, Ali hadn’t been very religious. But facing death brought the old invocations to mind. The sway of culture, educated Lubna would have called it. If she were here. If she could speak.

The creature stood still on the split cement, watching Ali. Nanohanced tigers had been more or less wiped out in the great hunts before the Global Credit Crusade, or so Ali had heard. I guess this is the shit end of “more or less.” More proof, as if he needed it, that traveling the Old Cairo Road on foot was as good as asking to die.

He almost thought he could hear the creature’s targeting system whir, but of course he couldn’t any more than the tiger could read the vestigial OS prompt that flashed across Ali’s supposedly deactivated retscreens.

God willing, Faithful Soldier, you will report for uniform inspection at 0500 hours.

Ali ignored the out-of-date message, kept his gun trained on the creature.

The tiger crouched to spring.

Ali squeezed the trigger, shouted “God is greater than credit!”

Sep 22, 2011 | 0 comments View Post
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EP306: Radio Nowhere

 
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By Douglas Smith
Read by Wilson Fowlie
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All stories by Douglas Smith
All stories read by Wilson Fowlie

Rated Inappropriate for the younger ones, due to words of a naughty nature.

Radio  Nowhere
by Douglas Smith

On the anniversary of the worst night of his life, Liam stood outside the darkened control room of the campus radio station. Over the speakers, the Tragically Hip’s “Boots and Hearts” was just winding down. Behind the glass in the studio, Ziggy’s small triangular face glowed like some night angel, lit from below by her laptop screen. She looked up, her eyes finding Liam’s in the darkness. Smiling, she wrinkled her nose at him. His own smile slid away, falling into the dark place inside him, the place that was always darker on this night.

Ziggy turned back to the mike as the song ended. “I’m closing with a request from an old friend, to an old friend. This one’s for Jackie, from Liam. A hurtin’ song, cuz he’s still hurtin’. Fifteen years ago tonight…” She looked at him through the glass.

Fifteen years. He closed his eyes. Fifteen years, and it still hurt this much.

Aug 19, 2011 | 0 comments View Post
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EP301: Stone Wall Truth

 
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By Caroline Yoachim
Read by: Heather Welliver
Originally appearing in Asimov’s
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All stories by Caroline Yoachim
All stories read by Heather Welliver
Nominated for the Hugo Nebula Award for Novelette, 2011

Rated appropriate for older teens and up for adult imagery.

Stone Wall Truth
by Caroline M. Yoachim

Njeri sewed the woman together with hairs from a zebra tail. Her deer-bone needle dipped under the woman’s skin and bobbed back out. The contrast of the white seams against her dark skin was striking.

“The center seam makes a straight line,” Njeri told her apprentice, “but the others flow with the natural curves of the body, just as the Enshai River follows the curve of the landscape.”

Odion leaned in to examine her work, his breath warm on the back of her neck. Foolish boy, wasting his attention on her. Njeri set her needle on the table and stood up to stretch. The job was nearly done — she’d repositioned the woman’s organs, reconstructed her muscles, sewn her body back together. Only the face was still open, facial muscles splayed out in all directions from the woman’s skull like an exotic flower in full bloom.

“Why sew them back together, after the wall?” Odion asked. “Why not let them die?”

Jul 14, 2011 | 0 comments View Post
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