Archive for 13 and Up

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Escape Pod 1070: Baboon, Brain, Brick (Democratic Futures Month)

Baboon, Brain, Brick originally appeared in The New Modality, May 2020. 

Includes mentions of war, genocide, and assassination as well as head trauma, unreality, medical confinement, and animal death.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:09 — 50.1MB)

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Baboon, Brain, Brick

By Louis Evans

It was a brick that did it, falling from a great height. So they said; but they never found the brick, and many things fall from heaven.

What everyone agreed upon, including the patient himself, whose agreement was otherwise so difficult to secure, was: one moment Aaron Metzger had been en route to his mid-morning International Relations graduate seminar, walking along a narrow pathway between two ancient, ivy-hung lecture halls, and the next, he was supine on a gurney, blinking in disorientation as a paramedic shone a light in his right eye and then his left. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 1065: Sister Cities

Escape Pod 1065: Sister Cities is an Escape Pod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 43:03 — 59.6MB)

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Show Notes

This episode is sponsored by Sleepphones! Use code ESCAPEPOD and get 10% off your purchase.

Sister Cities

by Marie Vibbert

The Pour House Tavern is built on a stairway, with low ceilings that step down along with the bar, so it’s hard to see who’s at the other end, and the smoke gathers on the high side, making it even harder, and that’s why I didn’t notice Rusty until Crash yanked me down to her mouth-level to shout, “My drone came back from West Leg.” She raises her brows, widens her eyes, like the only reason I’m not squealing in excitement is that I don’t get what she means.

It means that for once, the Halo didn’t shoot something down, nothing more, nothing less, but now I’ve seen Rusty there, and he’s looking over at us like he’s wondering what we’re up to. Rusty’s a rival climber with a rich daddy who underbids contracts because he doesn’t need the money. I haul Crash off her bar stool—she weighs less than a kitten—and shoulder my way out to the steeply-slanting alley. In one direction, the center of town gleams like a golden bowl. In the other, I smell piss. I turn to Crash with my most bored expression. “You think you can get to The Halo?”

“I know it! Look, I have footage, and a flight plan—”

“Ignore it,” I say. “Nothing but misery and death for the folks who try to go up.”

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 1064: The Rewilding of Lot 4987

Escape Pod 1064: The Rewilding of Lot 4987 is an Escape Pod original.

Includes several grade-A swears.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 49:09 — 68.0MB)

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The Rewilding of Lot 4987

By Johnny Caputo

From across the darkened rooftop of the long-abandoned engine plant, Geli heard the unmistakable whirring of drone blades.

Shit, she thought. Not here, too.

She looked up from her work weeding the tomato and lettuce beds. Sure enough, one of interFace Robotics’ surveillance drones was hovering there, its palm-sized screen held aloft by copter blades. The screen glowed with interFace’s standard golden facial avatar: a cartoonish robot, smiling mindlessly as it flew towards her. Its camera captured footage of the vegetable beds she maintained on this derelict property, a relic of the fossil fuel economy that interFace had never cared to surveil.

Until now, apparently. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 1050: Freebooter

Escape Pod 1050: Freebooter is an Escape Pod original.

Moderate use of harsh language.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 45:05 — 61.9MB)

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Show Notes

This episode is sponsored by Sleepphones! Use code ESCAPEPOD and get 10% off your purchase.

Freebooter

by Sylvie Althoff

The pirate bot was easy to miss. Squatting against a wall on the periphery of the Saint-Denis Heritage Market, it looked like an ordinary if outmoded HomeBot—a Gen One, the skinny bipedal kind that populated storage closets and garbage dumps the world over. But when backs were turned and no drones swooped overhead, Talia glimpsed a fluttering, holographic black flag flickering over the bot’s head.

Under bare chestnut branches and Haussmann roofs the color of smog, the vendors nearly outnumbered the shoppers. Steeped in the stifling late-winter air, the market felt as if it would give up the ghost any minute. Then again, it had been sliding into death since long before Talia fled here on a midnight flight from Texas…maybe even when she used to visit her grandparents as a young boy.

Ugh. For a world that was ending, this blasted planet sure was taking its time.

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 1045: The Graduates of Formost 891c

Escape Pod 1045: The Graduates of Formost 891c is an Escape Pod original.

Contains examples of animal surgical modification.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 42:04 — 58.2MB)

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The Graduates of Formost 891c

By Frank Baird Hughes

They say that in Texas, the best jobs go to the best citizens. The goal is national full employment. And everyone, no matter their work history, has their place in this great plan.

“You want me to leave Earth to be a child wrangler?” asked Blooming. “But I’ve never taught anything to anybody. Not even to ride a bike.” He regarded the job counselor with a half-hooded gaze, struggling to produce alternatives—anything besides those positions he’d already turned down—and failing. Blooming pushed his chair back, made as if to stand, then waited to see what the counselor would say.

“This student population is unique,” said the job counselor, which sat atop the kiosk counter decanted into a matte gray plasticine cube favored by the many minor functionaries of the Texan Kybocracy. “Extremely intelligent young people. Their parents regrettably perished during the Reorganization. It was decided their children should continue their education offworld. Your traits on the Lone Star Inventory concord well enough with this task.” (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 1044: Rhona’s Tavern and Spacetime Portal

Escape Pod 1044: Rhona’s Tavern and Spacetime Portal is an Escape Pod original.

Occasional use of harsh language

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:45 — 50.9MB)

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Show Notes

Escape Pod is proud to say that we have partnered with Sleepphones headphones to provide a special Escape Pod branded set of headphones.

SleepPhones® headphones are soft headphones that you can wear while you sleep. They’re comfortable, slim and essentially ‘headphones in a headband’.

Rhona’s Tavern and Spacetime Portal

by S. L. Myers

The two boon companions walked through the snowy woods along the cobblestoned road, the night lit by hissing gas lampposts. Ahead, just seen through the scarecrow trees, a neon sign glowed bright green—RHONA’S TAVERN. The modest two-story brick establishment was the only structure on the icy, tumbling, carbonaceous asteroid trapped in the bubble of frozen time.

The two were deep in a conversation very few in any time or place would have been able to understand, talking over and with each other in a mix of Common Tongue circa 5345 New Era, and in the woofs, squeaks, and chirps of the Deinonychus, circa Early Cretaceous period.

The man and proto-raptor turned off the road and followed the narrow, winding path leading to the tavern. They stopped on the stone landing near the oak and wrought iron door with its leaded glass and waited for the defense systems to finish their scans.

A click. The heavy door swung out, and the two friends stepped in, blasters raised, ready for anything, everything.

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 1043: The Smokejumpers

Escape Pod 1043: The Smokejumpers is an Escape Pod original.

Includes wildfires and peril.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 59:53 — 82.8MB)

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The Smokejumpers

By Sierra Bibi

When Fern jumps from the plane into the smoke for the very first time, she believes she has nothing left to lose. That’s not to say she’s unafraid exactly—not even hundreds of hours of simulations and dozens of practice jumps can prepare you for the reality of plummeting into the hazy unknown of an active forest fire. No, her fear is definitely there, but folded and tucked somewhere deep inside herself. Compartamentalized.

The smoke hurtles towards her, the ground below hidden. She rips her parachute—a massive thing designed to support the heft of her exoskeleton—and jerks backwards. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 1039: The Many Rebirths of Karina Morita

“The Many Rebirths of Karina Morita” first appeared in 2025 on Tim’s Patreon

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:16 — 44.3MB)

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Show Notes

Sponsored by Mixtape Stories

The Many Rebirths of Karina Morita

by Tim Pratt

My problems all started when I died.

People didn’t die too often on my hab, or anywhere else on the planets and stations of the Standard Curve; we cured illness and aging long ago, but there were still occasional deaths by misadventure. I was flying an ultralight to the outdoor sex and ice cream festival on the Melodious Archipelago when an unexpected updraft sent me spinning out, straight into the side of a familiar mountain (it was hollowed-out and contained an eternal-night dance club). As the meticulously textured stone surface rushed toward my face, I thought, “Oh well, at least I had a backup yesterday.” I’d lose my memories of the morning, sure, but my post-breakfast orgasms hadn’t been any better than usual, and the hollandaise on my dodo eggs was only okay too.

I was supposed to wake up in the cozy rebirth lounge of my own home on the Shimmering Terrace, my consciousness decanted into a fresh clone, as I’d done a dozen times before. Instead, I awoke naked and shivering, stretched out on a long table in a small room with silver walls, while a short woman wearing a pure white jumpsuit and an elaborate crown of stainless steel smiled down at me. “Karina Zephyrus Morita!” she said. “Welcome to the Interval. I’m your technician. I see this is your first time passing through. Don’t worry, we’ll get you assessed and processed quickly.”

I shrieked and sat up on the table. Was I in some kind of clinic? Had there been a mishap with the cloning process? I felt fine, and the bits of me I could see didn’t appear malformed. “What’s happening? Who are you? What is this place?”

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 1037: We Who Live in the Heart (Part 3 of 3)

We Who Live in the Heart originally appeared in Clarkesworld, May 1, 2017.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:02 — 51.4MB)

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Show Notes

Quantum Superposition

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_superposition

Cloudward Ho

https://dimension20.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Cloudward,_Ho!

Void Merch

https://voidmerch.threadless.com/collections/escape-artists-inc-x-voidmerch-1

We Who Live in the Heart (Part 3 of 3)

By Kelly Robson

(…Continued from Part 2)

Once we’re in the equatorial stream, we ride the wind until we get into the right general area. Then we wipe off the appetite suppressant, and hunger sends us straight into the arms of the nearest electrical storm.

The urge to feed is a powerful motivator for most organisms. Mama chases all the algae she can find, and gobbles it double-time. For us on the inside, it’s like an old-style history doc. Everyone stays strapped in their hammocks and rides out the weather as we pitch around on the high seas.

I always enjoy the feeding frenzy; it gets the blood flowing.

I’d just settled to enjoy the wild ride when Ricci pinged me.

Two crews tried surgical interventions on the regenerated tissue. Let me know what you think, okay? Maybe now we can convince them to let you help. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 1036: We Who Live in the Heart (Part 2 of 3)

We Who Live in the Heart originally appeared in Clarkesworld, May 1, 2017.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:39 — 53.6MB)

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We Who Live in the Heart (Part 2 of 3)

By Kelly Robson

(…Continued from Part 2)

Ricci got into my notes. I don’t keep them locked down; anyone can access them. Free and open distribution of data is a primary force behind the success of the human species, after all. Don’t we all learn that in the crèche?

Making data available doesn’t guarantee anyone will look at it, and if they do, chances are they won’t understand it. Ricci tried. She didn’t just skim through, she really studied. Shift after shift, she played with the numbers and gamed my simulation models. Maybe she slept. Maybe not.

I figured Ricci would come looking for me if she got stumped, so I de-hermited, banged around in the rumpus room, put myself to work on random little maintenance tasks.

When Ricci found me, I was in the caudal stump dealing with the accumulated waste pellets. Yes, that’s exactly what it sounds like: half-kilogram plugs of dry solid waste covered in wax and transferred from the lavs by the hygiene bots. (Continue Reading…)

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