Archive for 17 and Up

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Escape Pod 891: Wanderlust

This story originally appeared in Anathema: Spec from the Margins (July 2022)

Content warning for NSFW language, sex

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:37 — 46.6MB)

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Wanderlust

by L. P. Kindred

When he first approached me in the train station, I batted him away. I thought he was homeless. The weird, ellipsoidal neck tattoos creeping into view from his collar didn’t help. He persisted, and I took an actual look at him. Not homeless, just rough around the edges. When he talked, it was like he picked up a conversation I was having with myself. And staring into those ebony eyes of his didn’t hurt his chances either.

Coffee lasted hours. So did bedtime. When I asked him why he’d walked up to me, he said he liked the magenta scent of my locs.
With his accent, I thought he administered paralytics or worked in artificial intelligence, until he wrote out the word “synesthetic.” I didn’t really need all that. Just more kisses.

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 889: The Greatest One-Star Restaurant in the Whole Quadrant

“The Greatest One-Star Restaurant in the Whole Quadrant” originally appeared in Lightspeed in December 2017, and in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018.

Warning for some gruesome descriptions and maybe some cannibalism-adjacent behavior.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:22 — 54.5MB)

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The Greatest One-Star Restaurant in the Whole Quadrant

by Rachael K. Jones

Engineer’s meat wept and squirmed and wriggled inside her steel organ cavity, so different from the stable purr of gears and circuit boards. You couldn’t count on meat. It lulled you with its warmth, the soft give of skin, the tug of muscle, the neurotransmitter snow fluttering down from neurons to her cyborg logic center. On other days, the meat sickened, swelled inside her steel shell, pressed into her joints. Putrid yellow meat-juices dripped all over her chassis, eroded away its chrome gloss. It contaminated everything, slicking down her tools while she hacked into the engine core on the stolen ship. It dripped between her twelve long fingers on her six joined arms as she helped her cyborg siblings jettison all the ship’s extra gear out the airlocks to speed the trip.

So when the first human vessel pinged their stolen ship with an order for grub, Engineer knew that meat was somehow to blame.

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 885: The CRISPR Cookbook: A Guide to Biohacking Your Own Abortion in a Post-Roe World

“The CRISPR Cookbook: A Guide to Biohacking Your Own Abortion in a Post-Roe World” originally appeared in Lightspeed Magazine (September 2022).

Abortion, forced pregnancy

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:52 — 33.3MB)

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The CRISPR Cookbook: A Guide to Biohacking Your Own Abortion in a Post-Roe World

by MKRNYILGLD

If you’re reading this—on some godforsaken imageboard, or dog-eared book page, or in encrypted base pairs sequenced off 3D-printed oligos—you’re probably grappling with a pretty tough decision right now.

Breathe.

I’m not judging you. I know how it goes. You tried your best but nothing’s infallible, or you slipped up one night, or he just straight-up went, your biological clock’s ticking, and hacked your birth control, knowing once it happens you won’t have a choice. The second his sperm enters your egg, he’s done, back to his star-studded career cranking out Science and Cell papers, and you’re stuck at home—with everything from your calories to your screen time dictated to you by Big Brother—hoping your research project will still be waiting for you after the baby pops out.

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 879: Triptych

Escape Pod 879: Triptych is an Escape Pod original.

Content warnings for gender dysphoria, and threats of gun violence

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:24 — 35.4MB)

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Triptych

by Avi Burton

Delaney didn’t have time to change before the men in suits came and bundled her into the car. Her dress fell crooked against her knees, and her makeup was half-applied. The sting of cold air brushed against her bare shoulders. They hadn’t let her grab a jacket, either.

The hasty exit and lack of preparation made her think this semi-willing kidnapping couldn’t be for a public appearance. Security always made her change back into men’s clothes for that, no matter how nauseous the suit and tie made her. She knew the Senator’s people didn’t approve of her aesthetic, or her, period, but they gave her the brief grace of dressing how she liked—as long as she stayed hidden. If she ever left the house, it was as Senator Marcus Delaney. She’d never been allowed out before as this disheveled, in-between creature.

Delaney sat rumpled in the back seat of the van—Janus Delivery Services, read the logo imprinted on the side—and twisted her hands in her lap. There was a guard on either side of her, and one in the driver’s seat, who was wearing sunglasses. They were all white, male, and had a military look. Maybe Marines, definitely bodyguards, and not her usual handlers.

None of them made eye contact with her. Lines of tension dragged down the shoulders and frowns of the security guards. Something unspoken fizzled in the air, like a live wire, or a fuse burning down.

“What’s going on? What do you need me for?” Delaney asked. Usually, she was allowed a briefing before they came to take her, but she’d been ordered to get in the car without any other information.

“Quiet,” said the guard on the left.

“Did something happen?”

“Look.” Sunglasses in the front sighed, twisting the wheel. The windows of the van were tinted, and Delaney couldn’t make out more than faint road passing by. “You’ll find out when you get there. Don’t panic.”

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 862: The Pill (Part 2 of 2)

The Pill originally appeared in the collection Big Girl with PM Press, part of the Outspoken Author series.

Discussion of dieting, disordered eating, and anti-fat bias.

Also, disturbing imagery.

And swearing.

And sexy times.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:06 — 54.2MB)

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The Pill (Part 2 of 2)

By Meg Elison

(Continued from Part 1)

The Pill sold like nothing had ever sold before. The original, the generic, the knockoffs, the different versions approved in Europe and Asia that met their standards and got rammed through their testing. There was at last a cure for the obesity epidemic. Fat people really were an endangered species. And everybody was so, so glad.

One in ten kept dying. The average never improved, not in any corner of the globe. There were memorials for the famous and semi-famous folks who took the gamble and lost. A congressman here and a comedian there. But everyone was so proud of them that they had died trying to better themselves that all the obituaries and eulogies had this weird, wistful tone to them. As if it was the next best thing to being thin. At least they didn’t have to live that fat life any more.

And every time it was on the news, we sat in silence and didn’t talk about Dad. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 861: The Pill (Part 1 of 2)

The Pill originally appeared in the collection Big Girl with PM Press, part of the Outspoken Author series.

Discussion of dieting, disordered eating, and anti-fat bias.

Also, disturbing imagery.

And swearing.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:40 — 52.2MB)

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The Pill (Part 1 of 2)

By Meg Elison

My mother took the Pill before anybody even knew about it. She was always signing up for those studies at the university, saying she was doing it because she was bored. I think she did it because they would ask her questions about herself and listen carefully when she answered. Nobody else did that.

She had done it for lots of trials; sleep studies and allergy meds. She tried signing up when they tested the first 3D printed IUDs, but they told her she was too old. I remember her raging about that for days, and later when everybody in that study got fibroids she was really smug about it. She never suggested I do it instead; she knew I wasn’t fucking anybody. How embarrassing that my own mother didn’t even believe I was cute enough to get a date at sixteen. I tried not to care. And I’m glad now I didn’t get fibroids. I never wanted to be a lab rat, anyway. Especially when the most popular studies (and the ones Mom really went all-out for) were the diet ones. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 842: Love and Supervillains

Escape Pod 842: Love and Supervillains is an Escape Pod original.

Language, graphic sexual situations, blood and gore, more language.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:55 — 51.2MB)

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Love and Supervillains

By Caroline Diorio

The gals here at the Raleigh Women’s Asylum for the Nefariously Gifted have a little saying they like to share with the newbies: fuck a superhero once, shame on him; fuck a superhero twice, shame on you.

Well, technically my first super wasn’t a hero. Or even all that super. Davey could control metal with his mind, which came in handy whenever the little gears in the ice cream machine at our after-school job got jammed, but he couldn’t budge anything heavier or thicker than a can of tomatoes. He auditioned for the Southeastern Sentinels at their headquarters in Charlotte two months before our high school graduation, and while they didn’t laugh directly in his face, they thanked him for his “radical vulnerability” and told him they would “give him a call if they ever needed his skillset,” which was almost worse. He was a sweet boyfriend, though, always fixing my necklaces when they broke. We lost touch after we broke up for college, but in hindsight, I really should’ve looked him up back when I still had Internet access. Or any access to the outside world. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 831: Vi’Hun Heal

Escape Pod 831: Vi’Hun Heal is an Escape Pod original.

Infertility and mild gore.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:16 — 57.2MB)

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Vi’hun Heal

By Michelle Tang

The entrance panels, currently assuming the appearance of Earthian saloon doors, slid open. I rippled a welcoming cadence of light beneath my skin, and then, seeing the newcomer was human, made my best approximation of a smile. “Welcome to Healixir Trans-Galactic Lounge.” My table sat closest to the doorway and so I was accustomed to serve as both healer and hostess.

The visitor cast his eyes about the place and swallowed hard. I imagined his first impression: a famous Vethusian writer once compared the sight of us, our humanoid bodies standing within the lounge’s oval counters, to women in wide crinoline ballgowns surrounded by suitors. Except rather than ringlets of hair, we had neurodendritic tendrils. I preferred the image of a Las Vegas dealer passing out cards to gamblers, except everyone won. Above us, the clear dome revealed the sky, ever-moving like a river, pebbled with stars and ships that streaked past like darting fish.

“My name’s Daniel. I’m here for healing?” the man said. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 828: City of Refuge

City of Refuge originally appeared in Escape Pod: The Science Fiction Anthology, November 2020.

Contains harsh language, violence, and drug use

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 53:27 — 49.4MB)

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City of Refuge

By Maurice Broaddus

Hope was a fickle bitch. Mercurial and quixotic, the kind of woman you spent the whole week getting ready for only to have her cancel the date at the last minute.

The world was ending, but Royal Parker still had to go through the motions of a job interview. He knew as soon as he sat down across from the manager—in his ridiculous red and white striped shirt and paper hat—that he wasn’t getting the job.

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 817: A Dragon in Two Parts

Escape Pod 817: A Dragon in Two Parts is an Escape Pod original.

Includes chronic pain, mention of suicide, and language.

In the United States, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 800-273-8255.

Wikipedia’s list of global Suicide Crisis Lines is available HERE.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 43:39 — 60.4MB)

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Show Notes

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A Dragon in Two Parts

By Kiya Nicoll

“‘Shed your skin and spread your wings to fly’,” I read off the sign. The letters were done in a sort of swooshy font and punctuated by yellow and blue yin-yangy things at either end. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable getting a biorefurbishment from someplace that mixes their metaphors quite that hard.”

“C’mon, they’re a bit woowoo, but from everything I’ve read, they’re hands down the best.” Alice tugged at my hand. “At least go to an info session or something.”

“‘A bit woowoo’ isn’t promising either.”

Nonetheless I let her drag me through the doors and around to the brochures and past several rounds of smiling people who left me with the impression that I was dealing with something more like a cult than a medical practice. (Continue Reading…)

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