Posts Tagged ‘novella’

Genres: , , ,

Escape Pod 692: Lab B-15 (Part 2 of 2)

Lab B-15 originally appeared in Analog, March/April 2018.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:55 — 72.2MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | Podchaser | RSS

Lab B-15 (Part 2 of 2)

By Nick Wolven

“I’ve called you here, tonight, to consider a hypothesis.”

Four faces looked up from the conference table below. Arvin and Kim sat on Jerry’s right hand. Facing them were Chris Lister and Marjorie Cheong, two computer scientists who handled the hardware setup and modeling software. Jerry waited to see how they’d respond.

They didn’t. The conference room was a scene of utter silence. As Jerry had expected.

“I want to run through this together,” Jerry said. “Now, be candid. Don’t hold back. If I’m right, we might have an answer to the problems we’ve been seeing. Questions?”

Arvin raised a hand.

“I have a question, Doctor Emery. Um–what happened to you?”

Jerry was taken aback. “Pardon?”

The young man dropped his hand. “You must have gotten engaged or something, right? Or you got a dog? Something’s changed.”

Jerry hesitated. After driving to the compound, this latest time through the loop, he’d grabbed Arvin’s hand and effectively dragged him to the institute. Jerry had done the same with Kim, then gone on to collect Chris and Marjorie, the only other colleagues who were still in the office. Upon recruiting these followers, Jerry had made sure to keep them in sight. No one was going to disappear on him tonight.

Not this time.

Not while he needed them.
(Continue Reading…)

Genres: , ,

Escape Pod 691: Lab B-15 (Part 1 of 2)

Lab B-15 originally appeared in Analog, March/April 2018.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:44 — 43.0MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | Podchaser | RSS

Show Notes

News release and academic paper about Zelomorpha effugia – the parasitic wasp species discovered in Costa Rica and named in honor of Escape Pod in July 2019.

(Effugia – plural of effugium: 1: an escape, flight; 2: a means or way of escape)

Lateral image of Zelomorpha effugia holotype female.

Lab B-15 (Part 1 of 2)

By Nick Wolven

The young man was sitting outside the parking garage, and right away Jerry thought that was weird. This was the Arizona desert, middle of summer. People didn’t sit outside. They especially didn’t sit outside ugly parking garages, on strips of hot concrete, with no grass in sight.

The boy was Arvin Taylor, one of the lab techs from the day shift. Not a person Jerry saw often, though technically one of his employees. He ought to be working, not lazing around outdoors.

“Arvin.” Jerry pulled up, rolled down the window. “What are you–?”

But Arvin was already hurrying toward the car.

“Doctor Emery.” All the techs addressed Jerry as “doctor.” It was something he insisted on. None of this Joe-John-Jane stuff, everyone on a first-name basis, like they were Mouseketeers or flight attendants. With the work they were doing, they couldn’t afford to be casual.

Arvin bent down, peering in the window, squinting in the sun. He was dressed professionally, but cheaply: Dockers, button shirt.

The boy must have been sitting outside for hours. His shirt was soaked with sweat. He looked woozy, sunstruck.

“I’m glad I caught you, Doctor Emery.”

“How long have you been out here, Arvin?”

“It’s really important.” The young man’s eyes slid sideways, feverish. Jerry worried he might pass out. “I have to tell you …”

And that was it. Arvin’s mouth hung open, tongue moving vaguely.

Jerry put a hand on the gearshift, a gentle reminder. He had work to do, places to be. “I’m due in the office. If I’m not mistaken, you’re supposed to be there, too. Doesn’t your shift go till six?”

Arvin wasn’t listening. His eyes had assumed a peculiar cast, half daft, half frantic, like a circuit inside him had failed to connect. “It’s about … Lab B-15.” (Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Escape Pod 655: And Then There Were (N-One) (Part 4)

“And Then There Were (N-One)” first published in Uncanny Magazine Issue 15 (March/April 2017), with author interview

A couple f-bombs

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:16 — 43.9MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | Podchaser | RSS

And Then There Were (N-One), Part 4

by Sarah Pinsker

Back in my room, I stripped my wet clothes off and replaced them with another T-shirt and boxer shorts. The whiskey didn’t do the job I’d hoped it would, so I spent the night in imaginary conversation with Mabel. The rain battering the window filled in her side of the dialogue. I walked through the order of events, everything I’d found. I had ideas, but they weren’t cohering. The timing was important, I knew that. Murder weapon would be lovely, but I didn’t expect a forensic report any time soon. As for suspects, for all the people giving me alibis and vouching for themselves and each other, it could still have been anybody.

I drifted away from the case itself. The host said she wasn’t the Prime, wasn’t the trunk of a branching tree, but she’d labeled us all in relation to her. We were all in close proximity. Even the most distant of us were still recognizable. Tiny differences. I hadn’t run into anyone who lived in a post-water shortage America, or post-flu, or post-oil. We all knew how to flush toilets.

What would it look like if we had radiated out from me instead of the host? Or if we had all radiated out from the hotel clerk, whom the quantologist had said was one of the farther iterations? There were other realities between these, ones she hadn’t chosen. N Sarahs, in N realities, where N was unknowable and constantly changing. Why had she chosen us and not others? Was I the most interesting of a string of insurance investigators, or the only one available this weekend? I had more questions than I’d had before I arrived.

(Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Escape Pod 654: And Then There Were (N-One) (Part 3)

“And Then There Were (N-One)” first published in Uncanny Magazine Issue 15 (March/April 2017), with author interview

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:18 — 46.7MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | Podchaser | RSS

And Then There Were (N-One), Part 3

by Sarah Pinsker

(Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Escape Pod 653: And Then There Were (N-One) (Part 2)

“And Then There Were (N-One)” first published in Uncanny Magazine Issue 15 (March/April 2017), with author interview

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:40 — 47.2MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | Podchaser | RSS

And Then There Were (N-One), Part 2

by Sarah Pinsker

Not me, my logic brain understood, even though some tiny part of me screamed something was wrong. I’d made it through the entire afternoon talking with people who were more like me than an identical twin would be, but the body was somehow more real. The others down at dinner all had stories to remind me I was still myself, that I could still be differentiated. Absent stories and quirks, absent a person talking at me to prove we were not the same, the vacuum came rushing in. Who was she? In what ways was she me, in what ways was she not? Who would mourn her? I tried to imagine the shape of my own absence from my own world. It was an impossible exercise.

I struggled to regain control over myself. “You know I’m an insurance investigator, right? Dead bodies aren’t my area of expertise.”

“You’re the closest thing we’ve got. None of us are medical doctors, and it’s too late for one anyhow, and I figured you investigate things. I couldn’t find any of the organizers, so I thought I’d look for you.” She must have had a good memory for details, if she managed to find me in that dining hall based on one short conversation. Maybe that was a thing we all had in common.

(Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Escape Pod 652: And Then There Were (N-One), (Part 1)

“And Then There Were (N-One)” first published in Uncanny Magazine Issue 15 (March/April 2017), with author interview

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:00 — 38.0MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | Podchaser | RSS

And Then There Were (N-One)

by Sarah Pinsker

I considered declining the invitation. It was too weird, too expensive, too far, too dangerous, too weird. Way too weird. An invitation like that would never come again. I’d regret it if I didn’t go. It lay on our kitchen table for three weeks while I argued out the pros and cons with Mabel. She listened, made suggestions; I countered her, then argued her part, then made both arguments, then reversed them again.

“How do I know it’s not a hoax?” I asked, studying the list of backing organizations for the twentieth time. “The website looks legit, but how could it not be a hoax?”

“Look at it this way,” Mabel said. “Either you’ll be part of a ground-breaking event in human history, or a groundbreaking psych experiment. Someone benefits either way. And you’ve never been to eastern Canada, so at least you get to see someplace new even if you just end up standing in a field somewhere looking silly.”

She always had a way of making an adventure out of things that would otherwise stress me out. Four months later, I flew to Nova Scotia, took a bus to a seaside town too small for a dot on a map, boarded a ferry to Secord Island, and stepped through the waiting portal into an alternate-reality resort hotel lobby swarming with Sarah Pinskers. At least two hundred of us by my estimation, with more straggling in.

(Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Escape Pod 442: Eater-of-Bone (Part 2)

This story has been previously published as a novella of the same name.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:41:32 — 69.8MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | Podchaser | RSS

Eater-of-Bone, part 2

by Robert Reed

[Please see Part 1 of this story at Escape Pod 442: Eater of Bone for the complete text.]

Genres:

Escape Pod 442: Eater-of-Bone (Part 1)

This story has been previously published as a novella of the same name.

Contains mild swearing.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:02:34 — 84.3MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | Podchaser | RSS

Show Notes

We still encourage you to visit the sponsor for last week’s episode.

Eater-of-Bone

by Robert Reed

1

With cured gut and twitch-cord, the Nots had constructed their trap—a marriage of old cleverness and deep rage designed to catch dreaded, unworldly monsters such as her. But the device had lain undisturbed since summer, and the winter rains had washed away some of the leaf litter and clay that served as its camouflage. Knowing what to expect, the young woman easily spotted the taut lines and anchor points, and experience told her where a single soft footfall would trigger the mechanism, causing the ground to fall away. An extraordinarily deep hole had been dug into the hillside. One misstep, and she would plunge into blackness, every kick and helpless flail bringing down the loose dirt that would suffocate and then temporarily kill. She had seen this design before. The Nots were masters when it came to doing the same ancient tricks again and again. Only once in her experience had this type of mechanism worked as designed, but the vivid memory of that exceptionally miserable night was enough to make the woman step backwards—a reflexive, foolish reaction, since traps occasionally came in pairs, and one careless motion could be more dangerous than twenty smart, studied footfalls.

But her bare foot fortunately hit only damp dirt, and she felt nothing worse than a jikk-incisor gouging her exposed Achilles.

She knelt slowly and pulled the thorn free, placing a thumb across the wound to force the first drop of blood to remain inside her body. Her skin grew warm beneath her touch, and then there was no wound. Sucking on her thumb, she tasted iron and salt and a dozen flavors of grime, and after some consideration, she carefully, carefully traced out a wide ellipse that eventually placed the trap upwind from her.

(Continue Reading…)

hot mature website