Posts Tagged ‘government’

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Escape Pod 924: The T-4200 (Part 2 of 2)

The  T-4200 originally appeared in Andromeda Spaceways Magazine on March 15, 2017.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:07 — 39.8MB)

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Show Notes

Theater of the Midnight SunThis episode is sponsored by The Theater of the Midnight Sun (TOTMS) podcast, an anthology series of sci-fi/fantasy audio dramas. It’s a bubbly cocktail of fantasy, mystery, and sci-fi adventure, with a splash of comedy. And it’s all ad-free.

Praise from Listeners:

“Great (5 stars). Awesome show.”

– Shadarko

“The first season of TOTMS is beyond brilliant. Fabulously well done.”

– Zeus Legion

“Excellent series (5 stars). The disclaimer is that the performers have never acted before. Don’t believe it! These are original entertaining stories with professional production values.”

– DigitalBeat

“Some of the best quality audio fiction I have ever encountered. High praise particularly for ‘Uniform’ and ‘Bluebirds and Dead Canaries.’”

– rsnider

“Very Entertaining! (5 stars) The stories blend a superb mix of fantasy with old-time radio mystery.”

– waitwhat?

You can find Theater of the Midnight Sun on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and other podcast directories.

The T-4200 (Part 2 of 2)

By J. R. Johnson

(…Continued from Part 1)

Carl scrambled to follow Mango past the loading dock to the parking corral. Her T was an early model with a lot of light-years on it, but its shell still shone and its maxillae were well-filed.

He stepped gingerly up onto one forelimb and squeezed between Mango and a delivery box.

“So,” she asked over her shoulder, “why do you need to get to the Core bad enough to spend a couple days’ pay on the trip?”

He snorted. “Try a week. I work for the government.”

Her eyes widened.

“No, it’s cool, I like my job. Second Assistant Director for Core Planning and Development.”

She didn’t respond, a familiar reaction when he talked about his job. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 923: The T-4200 (Part 1 of 2)

The  T-4200 originally appeared in Andromeda Spaceways Magazine on March 15, 2017.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:37 — 43.5MB)

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The T-4200 (Part 1 of 2)

By J. R. Johnson

Carleton T. Lowengren, low-level civil servant, single twenty-something and refugee from the war-torn Outer Rim, woke to the remnants of a gaming binge and a killer headache courtesy of his interface. The implant had been trying to wake him for some time.

He rolled off the couch. Another day, another commute from his nondescript apartment to the center of the Galaxy, trying to do the one thing his mother said he never would: make a difference.

The walk-in wardrobe straightened his collar as he registered the time. Carl sprinted past the pre-programmed bowl of cereal to the garage door.

“Leo? Where are you, boy?”

Carl’s ride was usually parked in the garage on a mat of sweet-grass and clover. It was nowhere to be seen. And it’s not like he could overlook a car-sized dimension-hopping tortoise. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 623: Surveillance Fatigue

Escape Pod 623: Surveillance Fatigue is an Escape Pod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:28 — 33.7MB)

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Surveillance Fatigue

by Jennifer R. Donohue

Is this woman a terrorist? It’s my job to decide.

My typical first step is social media, before I delve into the emails, the school records. Fortified with overbrewed office coffee, I take an afternoon and read through all three years of her 140-character thoughts, brief conversations with other users, occasional pictures. We’re encouraged to have our own process, and my entire workload, the entire organization’s workload, takes place on glowing screens large and small. We are constantly reading, listening, watching, bionic earbuds ensconced, AR glasses feeding us a constant stream of information. At the end of the day, we stumble out into natural light like people waking from a dream. The building which houses the organization is officially something too boring to look at twice, data storage or legal processing, office upon shell office of generic secretaries designed to deflect public inquiry.

She seems to like mystery books and horror movies. Here, I diverge to the school records. Drama club in high school. She majored in Communications and got good letters of recommendation from her professors. Moved to a city where she knew no one and got hired on at the temp agency. Maybe it’s her new friends which have put her on this list, writers and artists who still photocopy zines in fluorescent-lit shops, trimming them crookedly and stapling them together to hand out at open mic events.

Her government ID photo is serious, dark skin a stark contrast to the mandated white shirt, hair braided back, smile strained and not reaching her eyes. Her government ID does not reflect who she is; few do. She posts a lot of selfies, though. Far more than I do. There is an official metric of normalcy based on how many selfies one takes and posts and I, like my coworkers, try to do slightly more than minimum so as not to stand out. Of course, we’re graded differently, because we’re in the know. We are not to take this to mean we are immune to scrutiny. The opposite is true.

(Continue Reading…)

Book Review: Ink by Sabrina Vourvoulias

In certain parts of the US, immigration policy and illegal alien rights are forefront. In other parts, they exist only as issues upon which to campaign. Regardless of your opinion on the subject, it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that we’re moving in one of two directions: full amnesty or full illegality.

Ink, which will be released on October 15, tells one such story. Or, more precisely, four of them.

(Continue Reading…)

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