Posts Tagged ‘technology’

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Escape Pod 961: Mathball

Escape Pod 961: Mathball is an Escape Pod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:41 — 46.7MB)

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Mathball

By Larry Hodges

You are a baseball fan, sitting in the centerfield seats eating an overpriced hot dog. You are wearing a baseball cap, but not a batting helmet, of course. (Why would that be an issue? Hmm…)You smile brightly, but all will not end well for you unless you pay close attention.

“Play ball!” cries the umpire, crouching behind the plate. The crowd roars. The pitcher stares down at the catcher, waiting for the sign. They are the home team. Thousands cheer for them.

The batter waves his bat menacingly. He is a hero of this story.

Six scientists sit at their desks behind home plate, three on the third-base side, three on the first-base side. The three on the first-base side work for the pitcher and we don’t care about them—they are the enemy. The three on the third-base side work for the batter. They are from MIT. These latter three are the real stars of this story.

Well… mostly. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 957: Vault (Part 2 of 2)

Vault originally appeared in Clarkesworld, Issue 141 in June 2018.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 43:04 — 59.6MB)

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Vault (Part 2 of 2)

By D.A. Xiaolin Spires

(…Continued from Part 1)

“Lukas?”

Chenguang’s voice echoes in this expanse of dark.

A vortex of light opens to her right and she sees a warped head and legs emerge from a point in the dark. It’s Lukas. As he enters the space, the light bends, his figure elongated as he pulls himself through and it closes behind him. It’s dark again.

“Hey, Lukas.”

“Chenguang?” His voice is low and resounds against unseen walls. “Where is this place?”

“Did we just—enter the structure somehow?”

“I—I—don’t know.” Lukas’ voice uncharacteristically wavers before it quiets down in the darkness. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 956: Vault (Part 1 of 2)

Vault originally appeared in Clarkesworld, Issue 141 in June 2018.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:34 — 54.8MB)

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Vault (Part 1 of 2)

By D.A. Xiaolin Spires

Chenguang hikes up her sleeves before vaulting over the pile of fuzzy moss and greets Lukas with a nod. The chloropolyurethane fabric flaps in the slight breeze and the double suns beat down onto her arms.

Lukas fishes in his bag next to his tent for a bottle of sunsoak and releases the spray, running it generously over his solflex-covered arms, torso, and legs.

“Your head,” Chenguang says and he smiles, as if he hadn’t been doing this for years.

“Can’t reach,” he says, lying and Chenguang knows he just likes the attention. She grabs the spray and discharges that exhale of mist, covering his football-shaped clear helmet. She even sprays some on the clear hard arc under his bearded chin. She turns the mist onto herself, bringing down the spray over her exposed transpandex inner layer, the foam frothing up at her arms before becoming clear, encasing the invisible solflex pores of her fabric. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 952: Skyscrapers That Twist to the Sun

“Skyscrapers That Twist to the Sun” appeared in Fantasy Magazine Issue 87 (January 2023)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 16:12 — 22.7MB)

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Skyscrapers That Twist to the Sun

by Erin Brown

Shaundra took the small, empty cardboard box and swiveled on her work stool to place it gently on top of her daughter Dineisha’s head. Her daughter went cross-eyed trying to look at it and started chewing on the corner of her thumb, smiling at the game.

“Okay.” Shaundra placed her hands on her knees and leaned forward to look her daughter in the face. “What’s supposed to be in the box?”

Dineisha tried a little longer to look at the top of her own head, giggled, and took the box down to read the label. “Thirty-four, no, three-quarter something nuts.”

“That’s right.” Dineisha replaced the box on her head. “But the box is empty. Do we know why the box is empty?”

Dineisha shrugged and gnawed at her thumb.

“I want to make sure that we know that just because we don’t say something with our words doesn’t mean we aren’t lying. Momma asked you where the three-quarter something nuts were. So if you know, you need to tell me.”

“I planted them,” Dineisha said around her thumb.

(Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 951: The Scientist Does Not Look Back

Escape Pod 951: The Scientist Does Not Look Back is an Escape Pod original.

Death, grief and loss.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:27 — 46.4MB)

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The Scientist Does Not Look Back

By Kristen Koopman

Feb. 17, 3:40 AM. Audio notebook for new project: revival of a clinically dead patient, 36 year old male, died of hypothermia and shock.

The technician at the morgue hesitated when releasing him to me. I’m not surprised, with the tone that took hold of my voice as I corrected her Mr. to Dr. as she took down my details. When I gave her my name, her pen stalled over the paper—a giveaway that his parents had called before I arrived. I should be grateful that she released him to me anyway, honoring my legal right to the body. I should be grateful for so much, I suppose, even if it doesn’t feel like it, to have this opportunity to—to not let his story end in tragedy. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 949: A Foundational Model for Talking to Girls

Escape Pod 949: A Foundational Model for Talking to Girls is an Escape Pod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:14 — 39.2MB)

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A Foundational Model for Talking to Girls

By Brian Hugenbruch

“Hey Marty,” Mom asks, “got a moment?”

I cringe whenever Mom’s voice has that tone to it. I don’t know what she’s going to say; but if I’ve learned anything in my thirteen years on this desolate, oxygen-deprived rock, it’s that she’s going to find a way to say the most mortifying thing possible. It would be impressive, the way that every sentence excavates my stomach—if it weren’t my stomach she was mining!

Okay, that’s unfair. Maybe this time it won’t be so bad?

“That girl who just walked past us. Why didn’t you ask her out?”

Or not. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 947: Rupert Weard and the Case of the Adamant Annihilist

Escape Pod 947: Rupert Weard and the Case of the Adamant Annihilist is an Escape Pod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 46:58 — 65.0MB)

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Rupert Weard and the Case of the Adamant Annihilist

By Rob Gillham

Rupert Weard leapt into the drawing room, escaping a hallway dense with impossibly angled, tentacular horrors trying to sell him insurance.

“Ye gods, it’s bedlam out there,” he said. “Just look at this, Boswell.” He hurled his folded newspaper at me like a frisbee.

I occupied my usual spot on the rug by the fireplace. I’d been happily finishing off the remains of a cauliflower when the unwanted periodical came streaking across the room, forcing me to hop into frantic evasive action.

“Oi!” I said, coughing up half-chewed bits of Brassica oleracea. “Do you mind? That was my breakfast.”

“It’s eleven o’clock, you idle rabbit.” Rupert slammed the door firmly shut on a particularly determined sales rep attempting to squeeze its incompatible geometry into the room. (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 936: Old People’s Folly (Part 2 of 2)

Old People’s Folly originally appeared in Future Science Fiction Digest, Sept. 2021.

Homophobia. Parental abuse.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:03 — 44.5MB)

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Old People’s Folly (Part 2 of 2)

By Nora Schinnerl

(…Continued from Part 1)

Kite was still curled into a bundle of blankets in front of the stove when Setti woke. The old woman sniffed, torn between surprise and annoyance. She’d have figured him for a quitter, sneaking out before dawn to escape the work. That’s what she’d have done when she was his age. Not like Setti was in any shape to chase after him. But he’d stayed and now she was stuck with him, just like she was stuck with her ghost. There was a thought to cheer her up in the morning.

“Ey, boy.”

The bundle of blankets stirred, then Kite woke with a start. The bruise on his face looked worse in the harsh morning light, his cheek all swollen and purple. From the way he winced, it wasn’t the only one either. Setti dropped a bowl of oats on the table for him.

“About time you start working for your food.” (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 935: Old People’s Folly (Part 1 of 2)

Old People’s Folly originally appeared in Future Science Fiction Digest, Sept. 2021.

Homophobia. Parental abuse.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:12 — 42.0MB)

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Old People’s Folly (Part 1 of 2)

By Nora Schinnerl

Setti knew the woman for a ghost the moment she appeared. It was the pink hair that gave her away, short and spiky. Real people didn’t have hair like that. Also, you couldn’t see the scratchmarks on Setti’s kitchen table through real people’s torsos.

“The hell?” was the first thing the ghost said. Setti’s grandfather had tried to tell her ghost stories when she was a kid, a long time ago, but he’d had a habit of smoking and drinking too, so none of the stories had ever made any sense and Setti didn’t like unannounced visitors.

“Get out of my house,” Setti demanded.

“Um,” the ghost answered, staring at Setti with her eyes rimmed in thick black mascara, then held holding up a placating hand. “Okay. Just let me find—”

The ghost blinked out of existence. (Continue Reading…)

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