EA Metacast, December 2014
What’s in store for Escape Artists — and for you — in 2015? Listen and find out!
Escape Pod 474: In Coppelius’s Toyshop
In Coppelius’s Toyshop
by Connie Willis
[EDITOR: We don’t have the rights to post the text of this story.]
Escape Pod 473: Soft Currency
Soft Currency
by Seth Gordon
When Cassie Levine was nine years old, her family lived in the center of Boston, Lyndon B. Johnson was President, and Cassie learned that her mother was a criminal.
The two of them sat in a parked car on Blue Hill Avenue, outside Ethel Glick’s grocery store. While Cassie ate an ice-cream sandwich, her mother smoked a cigarette. The sandwich, the cigarettes, and three bags of groceries had come from Mrs. Glick’s store. When the ice cream sandwich was half gone, Cassie asked, “Why did you change Dad’s money at Mrs. Glick’s? Why not go to the bank?”
Cassie’s mother had passed Mrs. Glick a twenty-dollar bill; the older woman had tucked the bill under the counter and handed back a stack of coupons; then, her mother had used some of those coupons to pay Mrs. Glick. Each twenty-coupon note showed a picture of Margaret Mitchell, holding a copy of Gone With the Wind. Cassie’s little brother called coupons “cootie money,” because only women and girls could use them.
“The exchange rate at the banks is twenty-seven coupons for a dollar,” Cassie’s mother said, “and Mrs. Glick is paying thirty-one.”
“Why don’t the banks pay thirty-one?”
“The government won’t let them.”
“Does the government let Mrs. Glick?”
Cassie’s mother drew on her cigarette and exhaled out the half-open window into the drizzle. Cassie licked vanilla ice cream all around the edge of her sandwich, feeling smug and virtuous and full of sugar. “You’re doing something il-le-gal,” she said, stretching out the last word.
“Don’t tell your father about this.”
Cassie raised her eyebrows. Her mother’s expression was solemn. Through the blur of rain over the windshield, Cassie could see the delicatessen on the opposite corner; the G&G sign was suspended over the sidewalk, round and vertical like a ketchup bottle. Some nights, Cassie’s father would take the family out to dinner there.
“He’s an idealist, and I love him for that, but… he doesn’t understand how much things cost.”
“Is it really illegal, changing money at Mrs. Glick’s? Could you get arrested for it?”
Her mother shook her head. “It’s like jaywalking, honey. It doesn’t hurt anyone, and the police have better things to do than go after it.”
Escape Pod 472: The Mercy of Theseus
The Mercy of Theseus
by Rachael K. Jones
Greta and Jamal have three arms, two legs, and one working kidney between the two of them. The kidney belongs to Greta. Its twin went to her little sister three years back, and now she has a laparoscopic keyhole scar over her belly button to remember it by. She can feel it pull tight when she rolls her creeper beneath the chassis of the next project in the shop. Thanks to the war, Jamal has lost the arm, the legs, and the other two kidneys.
All his parts have since been replaced.
When Greta picked up Jamal in Washington, D.C. three days back, the first thing she did was insult him.
“You look like shit,” she said. His left hand–the good one–flew up to his right cheek where the surgical scars stood out like red cords. His bionics were top notch–the Army had to put you together again before they could legally discharge you–but you could still see where the silicone skin ended and his real face began.
Greta snorted. “Not your face, you moron. Your sweatshirt. You look like a psycho killer.”
Jamal wore an oversize gray Army sweatshirt with the hoodie cinched tight beneath his chin. He dropped his hand and sidestepped when she tried to hug him. “Where did you park? Let’s get out of here.”
She ignored the slight and led the way to the parking lot. She felt secretly gratified when Jamal’s jaw dropped at the sight of the ancient Mercedes. “Jesus fucking Christ, Greta! You found Mercy!”
Greta sidled up behind him and eased the duffel bag from his hand–the bionic one. It looked like a real hand up close. Just not like Jamal’s hand. “Get in. We’re going on a road trip.” She slung the duffel bag on a stack of Heinleins in the back and took the driver’s seat.
“I don’t remember it smelling like French fries in here,” said Jamal. (Continue Reading…)
Genres: Robot
Escape Pod 471: Shared Faces
Shared Faces
by Anaea Lay
Dora’s favorite thing about Justin was that he liked to talk during sex. A good conversation turned him on, and he’d keep it up until the breathless, incoherent stage right before the end. They weren’t at that stage quite yet. Soon. At the moment she was nibbling the flesh at the very top of his thigh.
What’s the spot for the sexbot to spot the spot of the plot damn spot
You’ll never get it out
The music fell from the speakers in a manic rush and Dora shifted her pace to match it. Her skin tingled in response to his arousal, her body automatically configuring itself to comply with the program they’d designed together before starting.
“Ugh, I hate this song,” Justin said.
Dora tightened her hand around him as she let go with her teeth. The conversation kept her mind engaged, prevented her from slipping completely into brain-dead-Bot mode. “Really? I like it. It’s catchy.”
“It’s awful,” Justin said. “Haven’t you seen the video?”
She had, and he was right, it was awful. A Sex Bot got jealous of her primary client’s human lover and attacked her. As if the heart-break of watching the client defend the lover weren’t enough, the video went on to lovingly depict the brutal punishment and dismantling of the offending bot. Dora’s skin went clammy-cold when she’d watched it.
“Yeah, but the nastiness isn’t in the actual lyrics, and it is really catchy.” (Continue Reading…)
ATTENTION! Escape Pod Closing to Submissions (Temporarily)
Escape Pod will be closed to general submissions for the month of December
to allow our staff to catch up on the backlog from our (highly successful!) call for Artemis Rising submissions. We will re-open normally in January. This applies only to general submissions. Artemis Rising submissions remain open as per the guidelines as originally posted.
Escape Pod 470: The Transdimensional Horsemaster Rabbis of Mpumalanga Province
The Transdimensional Horsemaster Rabbis of Mpumalanga Province
by Sarah Pinsker
I. Options for an Imagined Pictorial Eulogy of Oliver Haifetz-Perec
IMAGE 1: The photograph depicts an unmade bed covered in gear and clothing. A military-style duffel, half filled, dominates the shot. A camera bag sits next to it, cameras and lenses and lens cleaners laid out neatly alongside.
IMAGE 2: Shot from the center of the bed. A shirtless man reaches for something high in the closet. He has the too-thin build of an endurance runner, his bare back lanky and muscled. There is a permanent notch in his left shoulder, from where his camera bag rests. A furrow across his back tells of a bullet graze in Afghanistan. The contrast of his skin and his faded jeans plays well in black and white. A mirror on the dresser catches Yona Haifetz-Perec in the act of snapping the picture, her face obscured but her inclusion clearly deliberate. Multiple subjects, multiple stories.
IMAGE 3: This photograph does not actually exist. A third person in the room might have taken an intimate portrait of the two alone in their Tel Aviv apartment, photographers once again becoming subjects. A third person might have depicted the way her freckled arms wrapped around his torso, tender but not possessive. It might have shown the serious looks on both of their faces, the way each tried to mask anxiety, showing concern to the room, but not each other. They have the same career. They accept the inherent risks. They don’t look into each other’s faces, but merely press closer. It would have been the last photograph of the two together. Eleven days later, he is beaten to death in Uganda. His press credentials, his passport, his cameras, his memory cards, and cash are all found with his body; it isn’t a robbery. Since the third option doesn’t exist, the last picture of Yona and Oliver is the one that she took from the bed: his strong back, her camera’s eye.
IMAGE 4: A Ugandan journalist sent Yona a clipping about Oliver’s death. A photo accompanies the article. It shows a body, Oliver’s body, lying in the street. Yona doesn’t know why anyone would think she would want to see that photograph. She does; she doesn’t. She could include it, make people face his death head on.
Instead she opts for
IMAGE 5: in which Oliver plays football with some children in Kampala, his dreadlocks flying, his smile unguarded (photographer unknown), and IMAGE 6.
Genres: Space
Escape Pod 469: Inseparable
Inseparable
by Liz Heldmann
The disruptor net hit the ocean with an eruption of steam. Obscuring billows gouted up in columns of gray and white and the target was close enough that the aft hull immediately registered a thermic spike. The temperature shot from swampy greenhouse to hot-as-fucking-Hades. Technically speaking.
Around the quadrant, warships were deploying nets as weaponry. Best not to think about that. Science was the new war, according to Delia.
The weave generated out of the arse end of the ship was coarse, each node tuned two-dimensionally to its neighbors in a honeycomb lattice that formed a curved plane. A great big seine made of plasma, dragging a world ocean underneath a sun that filled the forward viewscreen as if trying to muscle out of the frame.
Both density and chemistry dials had been spun and today’s net split the surly bonds between hydrogen and oxygen wherever it encountered them in a medium of approximately one gram per cubic centimeter. Which meant that the net sliced through alien waters like gamma rays through goose shit and didn’t so much as muss the hair of any entities it scooped up in the process.
Forget ‘Take me to your leader’. We quit asking nicely a few planetary systems in.
Just about the day we got our first sentient ‘Thanks, but no thanks, and by the way, eat plasma’.
Hence the warships.
Escape Pod 468: The Law of Gravity
The Law of Gravity
by Sam Ferree
That sunrise was the best they had made yet. The air was cool, not cold, and the Termination was just the right shade of pomegranate red around the sun. The light breeze smelled like oranges. It reminded me of candy, not real fruit, just that imitation flavor that somehow tastes better than the real thing.
“I think Lauren’s dead,” Lukas repeated, his avatar’s young face contorted in disgust. Lukas had chosen a runner’s physique, because, out there, he’d been a track star in college; why that mattered to him was beyond me.
“What do you mean you think she’s dead?” I asked. We were sitting at Reel Café — a not-so clever pun, I thought — at the edge of the patio. We had met there every Monday morning for years.
My coffee was cold and my cigarette spent. Lukas had ordered his usual Earl Grey and a grapefruit, but he hadn’t touched either one.
Lukas shook his head. “Her avatar is in Smith Field. Just standing there, staring off at nothing. It’s been doing that for weeks. I spoke with a friend of mine, an administrator. They’re shutting down her account because her fees are overdue. She hasn’t been away from the Flat for more than two days in decades. She’s dead, Noah.”
“So she’s been away for a few weeks. That doesn’t mean anything.”
“But it’s a pretty good sign she isn’t coming back.”
The orange scent was fading and Lukas was silent. I said, “Well, what do we do?”
“What?” Lukas looked up. Eventually, he shrugged. “I suppose we arrange a funeral.”
I nodded, but said, “I don’t actually think she’s dead.”
“She is,” Lukas muttered. His twenty-something avatar wore an old man’s bitterness.
I picked up my coffee. The mug looked like it had been made by a five year old. Everything about the Reel Café had that hokey-imperfection. When you sat in the chairs, you half-expected a distinguished looking gentleman to walk up and ask you to please not sit on the dadist art.
I dropped the mug. It shattered with a disappointing crack. A nearby waiter started toward me, glowering and brandishing a towel like a gladiatorial weapon.
“Why did you do that?” Lukas asked.
“Just testing,” I said, knowing that Lauren would have been less than amused. (Continue Reading…)
Escape Artists presents ARTEMIS RISING: A Celebration of Women in Genre Fiction
Between now and December 20, 2014, Escape Pod is accepting submissions of woman-authored science fiction for ARTEMIS RISING, a month of audio fiction celebrating women in genre fiction, airing in February 2015.
Payment: $0.06 per word for original fiction; $0.03 per word for reprints We are an SFWA qualifying market for original fiction and pay professional rates.
Who can submit?
Anyone who identifies as a woman, to whatever degree that they do. All non-binary folk are welcome.
Additionally, we strongly encourage submissions from people of backgrounds that have been historically underrepresented or excluded from traditional SF publishing, including, but not limited to, people of color, LGBTQ or non-binary gender people, persons with disabilities, members of religious minorities, and people from outside the United States. Our goal is to publish science fiction that reflects the diversity of the human race, so we strongly encourage submissions from these or any other underrepresented groups.
What can I submit?
Science fiction stories between 2,000 and 6,000 words. You may submit up to 1 original story and 1 reprint for consideration in ARTEMIS RISING, although original stories are strongly preferred. If you already have a submission in regular Escape Pod slush, you may still submit to ARTEMIS RISING.
You can expect a response by mid-January 2015. Although we’ll be accepting a limited number of stories for ARTEMIS RISING, all submissions will also be considered for Escape Pod proper.
How do I submit?
Email your submissions to submit AT escapepod DOT org, using the subject line ARTEMIS RISING SUBMISSION: Storyname (e.g. “ARTEMIS RISING SUBMISSION: Attack of the Killer Space-Whales”)
Please follow regular Escape Pod guidelines for the story’s formatting. In your cover letter, please include the story’s word count, and for reprints, the story’s publication history.