Posts Tagged ‘Hugo Jackson’

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Escape Pod 1006: When the Oracle Speaks (Part 2 of 2)

“When the Oracle Speaks” was first published in Metaphororsis, July 2023

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:50 — 51.1MB)

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When the Oracle Speaks (Part 2)

by Albert Chu

Outside the warehouse, the rain fell in sheets. It whipped the Azure River into a frenzy, and the waters responded with a hungry roar as they swirled past the dock. It pounded the warehouse’s loading bay, transforming it into a marshy field of shallow ponds and rocky islands. Nobody, not even a dock worker, was about; the only things that moved were the automata. They paced back and forth, their armor caked with rust, and as they splashed through the watery field, droplets running down their limbs, they showed no signs of minding.

The shadow of a narrow alleyway enveloped me, hiding me from the automata. For a moment, anticipation and fear flickered in my chest, before I exhaled and snuffed them both out. I stepped out of the alleyway, protected by my umbrella. Espionage mission or not, I wasn’t letting my hair get wet.

Both automata stopped and turned to face me; the rain filled the void of silence left by their stilled feet. I continued walking forwards with purpose.

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 1005: When the Oracle Speaks (Part 1 of 2)

“When the Oracle Speaks” was first published in Metaphororsis, July 2023

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:13 — 43.3MB)

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When the Oracle Speaks (Part 1)

by Albert Chu

One year after the war’s end, the royal court welcomed a hundred orphan boys into our ranks. They flew into the city’s spaceport by shuttle and proceeded up the hill on the backs of the court’s own palanquin-bearers; upon entering the palace grounds, they received the speeches and banquets we held in honor of their noble suffering. The boys, hailing from the kingdom’s most war-torn moon, had lost everything, but now their days of hardship were over. They had become esteemed wards of the House of Hassam.

After a few days, though, people in the court whispered of something else. The cooks and dressing girls repeated the same rumor: Did you hear? One of the new boys can see the future. The ministers and generals, who should have held themselves above idle gossip, indulged in speculation: If this is true, could the boy be of use? And everyone wondered how the king might act. We all knew his strength was the House’s strength. If the boy possessed some special power, my father would take him.

So I never had any intentions of turning the boy to my side. I was just curious.

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 994: Magical Girl Antifa War Machine

Escape Pod 994: Magical Girl Antifa War Machine is an Escape Pod original.

NSFW. Includes violence, death, mental health issues, global disaster, explicit sex, consensual BDSM, war trauma, a brief mention of COVID, and a brief mention of rape.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:59 — 49.9MB)

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Magical Girl Antifa War Machine

By Esther Alter

XYLIA

We were at the bottom of a hole, a new construction site that went deep into the bedrock. I was the first to touch the artifact, a thing that didn’t quite have shape or color. I grabbed it. My new consciousness slammed into my mind so fast that there was just enough time for only one last wholly-human thought: You’re a girl, you fucking idiot.

My new form was sleek. Mathematically perfectly curved. Hyperfeminine in the truest sense. Breasts extending into six dimensions. A tall, lithe, highly reflective body. A smooth face with eyes burning with seductive rage. And strength, immense strength. I flexed and felt a distant star flicker a warning. (Continue Reading…)

Escape Pod 973: Forever the Forest

“Forever the Forest” was first published in “Life Beyond Us: An Original Anthology of SF Stories and Science Essays” (April 2023)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:26 — 51.9MB)

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Forever the Forest

by Simone Heller

It is known that the Rootless are only ever leaving. Always moving on, never embracing soil long enough for connection. A life tumbled and tossed, and if it touches ours, it is only by chance, and ill chance more often than not.

But you came, in a tumble and a glorious blaze, by intention and by ill chance.

The night of your arrival was almost my undoing. You rode an incandescent gust tearing into our rows, escorted by a rain of hot metal. The ground rippled once with your impact, outward and onward, quicker than the fungal network could warn us. When the air stilled and the Conversation erupted in bursts of pain! and fire!, no-one knew what had crashed down on us. We sucked moisture from the deep, made the lesser plants close their ranks and smother the flames, and we calmed the Conversation with memories of renewal and regrowth.

You had plummeted from the sky, the fungal network relayed, as the filament reached out again to take hold of the large swath of churned and scorched soil, of everything that lay fallen and ready to decompose. Our rootscape expanded anew, tasting the damage and the altered lay of the land. But one blank spot persisted.

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 898: A Gentlemen’s Agreement

A Gentlemen’s Agreement was originally published in Kaleidotrope in January 2022.

Violence and peril.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:50 — 45.6MB)

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A Gentlemen’s Agreement

By Aimee Ogden

Heroes are such fragile things.

Sphinx takes in the scene from a distance, first, as is his custom. He makes a wide orbit around the pillars of smoke and the pathetic caution-tape bandages. The first responders are looking in the wrong place. The cones of searchlights angle away from the response team, leaving the darkness and smoke to swallow up the navy-blue uniforms. Yellow letters reading LAKESIDE EMS float, disembodied, in the air. Steel girders cut oblique angles through the top of the fog.

They’re searching in the foundations of the ruined RadioGenInc Labs building.

Moving slowly, too: either out of consideration for the structure’s instability, or the hazardous chemicals that may have been released by the bomb, or because they are (reasonably) concerned that Doc Diablo has left traps against the unwary would-be rescuer.

It may also be that the rescue team has access to information that Sphinx does not. This is a slender possibility, though, and it will not bear the weight of action.

The Cavalier will not be found here. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 882: Hey, George

Escape Pod 882: Hey, George is an Escape Pod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:50 — 44.2MB)

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Hey, George

By Elizabeth Guilt

“Hey, George.”

I remind myself that that is not my name; it never was. I will myself not to react, not to break stride, as I stroll along beside the beach.

Old habits die hard, and the best neuro-reset in the world can’t overcome years of routine. Whoever called out could, had they been watching closely, have seen my tiny hesitation. But they are not calling me.

I hear footsteps behind me, running steps, getting closer.

“George!”

I stop walking and take a deep breath. I assume a politely blank expression, and turn around.

And then I see her. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 484: That Tear Problem

This story was originally published in Kasma SF in June 2014.

Some adult language.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:36 — 16.3MB)

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That Tear Problem

by Natalia Theodoridou

“Now flex your arm,” the controller said. Her voice sounded dry and mechanical through the speakers.

“The real one or the other one?” I asked and immediately received a neuro-ping: You are real.

“Both your arms are real, soldier,” she said.

I always thought of her as a woman, but really it was just a voice. There was no way to tell gender.

Focus.

“Right. Which one do you want me to flex?”

“The left one.”

I flexed my left arm. It’s one of the limbs they rebuilt after the accident. The Neuropage pinged me again, just in case: You are real. All this is real. I wondered if they figured out I had found the glitch. Was that what prompted this ping? But it couldn’t be; the pager was supposed to be entirely incorporated into the nervous system. No outside access available.

Unless that was a lie, too.

“Now the other one,” the voice said.

“How much longer is this going to take?” I asked, flexing my right arm. I could feel my legs getting fidgety. They always did that when I was strapped down for long chunks of time. Ever since the accident. Fidget fidget fidget. Even while I slept, the legs fidgeted. I would much rather sleep floating around, but that set off the security alarm. I had found that out the hard way, on my second day at the space station.

“The muscle-tone examination is complete,” the controller said. “Now on to the neural routine.”

“The neural routine. Of course.”

(Continue Reading…)

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