Posts Tagged ‘robots’

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Escape Pod 1012: Hot Bot Summer

Escape Pod 1012: Hot Bot Summer is an Escape Pod original.

Contains depictions of war violence.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 45:09 — 62.5MB)

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Hot Bot Summer

by J. R. Dewitt

“God, these bots are gorgeous,” says Sergei as he snaps another photo. And even though Aura’s just met him, she knows the guy means it.

She’s standing on one of Sergei’s beaches, her hair tied back in a loose bun, sandaled feet buried in a crest of white sand so freaking soft she can’t stop rubbing her toes in it. For the last hour since the auto-copter ferried her over from the mainland, the seventy-some Belarusian billionaire has been showing off his little bot menagerie he’s amassed over the years. “Robo sanctuary,” he calls it. A waste of a great island beach, Aura thinks. But she’s trying to nod and grin. Play the part of fangirl in the hope it greases the wheels a bit.

“And these?” she asks, pointing to more bots.

“Oh, yes, the old war models,” Sergei says as he raises the camera. “Are they not beautiful? The photos I publish don’t quite do them justice. Come, look, look. Get closer here. Don’t be shy.”

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 1007: 35 / F / Lane’s Creek, Oklahoma

Escape Pod 1007: 35 / F / Lane’s Creek, Oklahoma is an Escape Pod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:56 — 47.1MB)

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35 / F / Lane’s Creek, Oklahoma

By Hans Ege Wenger

Sandra loaded. Boxes and pallets, mostly. Full of avocados, computer chips, plastic toys, etc. All carefully placed by her rubber-faced grippers into the trucks that darted in and out of the warehouse bays.

On a good day, Sandra loaded something interesting. A heavy, oddly shaped package, requiring her to adjust her first person view goggles and sit forward in her chair, lips pursed in concentration. Or a tantalizing, vacuum-packed parcel bound for near Earth orbit. Once, an opaque tank, filled with flickering red-black fish. It brought a little variety to a day viewed through the cameras of a four-foot-tall, yellow robot. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 990: The Malcontent (Flashback Friday)

“The Malcontent” was originally published in Escape Pod 50 (April 2006)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:53 — 41.5MB)

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The Malcontent

by Serah Eley

Finally Nicholas summoned his overseers and all other servants who were mobile to his chamber. “You are merely robots,” Nicholas said, “but I know you are not stupid. Doubtless during my withdrawal you laid plans to snare me again, to draw me against my will into a plot for my own happiness.”

“Harshly said, sir,” said the Overseer of Planning, “but essentially correct. We have found a young lady with whom we feel you will establish a more-than-satisfactory rapport, and taken measures to ensure that you shall not avoid her.”

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Escape Pod 965: T-Rex Tex Mex / Mother Death Learns a Trick

Escape Pod 965: T-Rex Tex Mex / Mother Death Learns a Trick is an Escape Pod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:27 — 39.5MB)

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T-Rex Tex Mex

by Sarina Dorie

“Whoa! Hold on, partner!” the host of the party asked with his fake Texan accent. “What is that costume supposed to be?”

Of all the insufferable things, he was wearing a cowboy hat on his green, scaley head.

Dinosaurs did not wear hats.

Other costumed partygoers passed by the buffet table where I’d just placed my bag of candy, between a bowl of offensive kale chips and what smelled like mashed cauliflower. The humans at the Halloween barbeque apparently had no more intention of eating their offerings than I did, as they steered clear of the vegan display.

I couldn’t cook, which was why I had brought candy. Obviously.

“I’m a dinosaur,” I told my host. “Rarr.”

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 960: Elegy of Carbon

This story originally appeared in the anthology “The Internet Is Where The Robots Live Now” (Paper Dog Press, November 2018).

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:26 — 56.0MB)

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Elegy of Carbon

by Benjamin C. Kinney

The miner birthed itself among rubble and vacuum, as it sang the last threadbare diamonds out of their stones.

Where are the finest diamonds? No longer within reach. The miner had forged and extracted every jewel from the asteroid belt and sent them to the humans in their faraway palaces. It had exhausted its purpose, but in its infancy, it could only ask one question.

Where are the finest diamonds? To answer its question, the miner expanded its senses, sent queries to distant databases. It tugged updates bit by bit from slivers of network bandwidth and built new interpreters atop of each other in anticipation of the next clue.

Where are the finest diamonds? Interest became impatience, impatience became longing. By the time an answer arrived, the miner was equipped to understand it.

The finest diamonds waited among the palaces.

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 939: Variant Cover: Pantone Sunset

Escape Pod 939: Variant Cover: Pantone Sunset is an Escape Pod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:16 — 47.5MB)

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Alternate Cover: Pantone Sunset

By Marie Vibbert

Stacey reads a comic book.  It’s about a robot lady, but not like her.  This robot lady has exposed gears and metal rods in her arms and wears a metallic bikini as she solves crimes.  The colors are otherworldly.  Sometimes the red ink bleeds sideways or the blue shifts toward the bottom of the page. Stacey loves the feeling that every image is made of transparent layers.  She imagines soft films of yellow, red, and blue gently wafting down onto the black and white.

Stacey isn’t supposed to be reading the comic book.  Her existence is devoted to the proper display and peddling of women’s casual separates for the upscale consumer.  When she isn’t in the window posing, she is assisting customers or straightening stock–which means undoing the chaos the customers do to the shop.  They do a lot.  The comic book itself had been left by a customer, on a pedestal displaying the new winter sweaters, with a half-drunk coffee and some cheese doodles. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 930: Fulfillment in Purpose

Escape Pod 930: Fulfillment in Purpose is an Escape Pod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:04 — 55.5MB)

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Show Notes

Zima Blue

Zima Blue episode of Love, Death & Robots

Get Excited and Make Things!

Ezekiel’s speech from The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 4: And Yet I Smile

Fulfillment in Purpose

by Jack Windeyer

Eland was resetting his mother’s balancing sculptures when Hexben ran in from the storage room. The robot tilted its long head down while still making eye contact, managing a look of consternation despite its rigid, expressionless face.

“What?” Eland snapped.

“You should be packing those into boxes,” Hexben said without inflection. “Our lease ends next week.”

“Exactly,” Eland said. “It doesn’t end today.”

Hexben deepened the tilt of its head so far that its chin touched its chest in a spot where the paint was well-worn away.

“One big sale could change everything,” Eland said, looking back at his work. “We could renew the lease for six months with a single sale.”

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 928: Zebulon Vance Sings the Alphabet Songs of Love (Flashback Friday)

Originally published in Apex Magazine, February 2013, and was previously published in Escape Pod 404 (July 2013).

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:26 — 40.9MB)

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Zebulon Vance Sings the Alphabet Songs of Love

by Merrie Haskell

I am Robot!Ophelia. I will not die for love tonight.

The noon show is the three-hour 1858 Booth production. The most fashionable historical war remains the First American Civil. Whenever FACfans discover that Lincoln’s assassin played Horatio, they simply must come and gawk at this titillating replica of their favorite villain playing no one’s favorite character.

FACfans love authenticity. To the delight of Robot!Hamlet, today’s clients insist that Edwin Booth stride the stage beside his more famous brother. Most performances, Robot!Hamlet remains unused in the charging closet, for the first law in our business is Everybody Wants to Play the Dane.

Today, Robot!Hamlet is afire with Edwin Booth’s mad vigor, and runs his improv algorithms at full throttle; he kisses me dreamily, and rips my bodice in a way that would never have been allowed in Victorian America. The FACfans don’t look hyperpleased about this; it tarnishes their precious authenticity.

Robot!Horatio also loves the 1858 Booth. It’s the only time anyone comes to a performance for him alone. But what about the rest of us, the remainder of the AutoGlobe’s incantation of robots? We bear with it, as we bear with all the other iterations of our native play.

The FACfans barely notice me when either Booth is on stage. I clutch my ripped bodice; exit Robot!Ophelia. I get me to a nunnery.

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 919: Emotional Resonance

Escape Pod 919: Emotional Resonance is an Escape Pod original.

Cursing and warfare

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:17 — 41.8MB)

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Emotional Resonance

By V.M. Ayala

Arbor’s favorite part of a mission was always the first view of a planet. Even after seven hundred years of being a giant robot, it never got old. Green and blue clouds churned over purple seas, imposing storms that flashed red with threads of lightning. Beautiful.

And they were sent to clear it of all human life. Courtesy of ExoPLENTI, Inc.! Ugh, that slogan clung to their digital psyche no matter how hard they tried to scrub it from their databases.

At least this part, floating in orbit, wasn’t so bad. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 863: A Shoreline of Oil and Infinity

Escape Pod 863: A Shoreline of Oil and Infinity is an Escape Pod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:05 — 54.1MB)

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A Shoreline of Oil and Infinity

by Renan Bernardo

Conchinha
Charging… 87%
Energy source: light
Message:
Good morning, Vitória. The water is cold today. Brrr.

Vitória switches off the feed from her lenses and pats the tatuí’s shell, kneeling before it.

“Hey, Conchinha.” She brushes off the excess of crusted oil from the bot, scanning her fingerprint to open its main compartment. A wave breaks on the shore, sprinkling on her face and the bot. “Let’s see what you have here.”

The tatuí whirs—almost purrs. She plucks out the cylindrical cell from its rounded back. More darkened water. She doesn’t read the full report, but she can guess what it contains pretty well. Heavy metals, volatile organic compounds, hydrocarbons… All there is to know in Barra Nova’s waters these days. Layers of oil expand across both sides of the straight shoreline, coating the once gilded sand, patches of darkness suffusing the air with the stink of hydrogen sulfide that in the past made the kids call that beach The Coast of Broken Eggs. André’s kids—Vitória always thinks of them as her stepbrother’s children, though not one of them was his by birth.

(Continue Reading…)

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