Posts Tagged ‘alien’

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Escape Pod 907: A Layer Thin As Breath

A Layer Thin As Breath originally appeared in Metaphorosis, July 2019.

Includes cursing and personal peril.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:05 — 70.6MB)

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A Layer Thin As Breath

By T. K. Rex

“Valley. Can you still hear me?”

Julian’s voice filtered through her dying radio. The Prince of Cats was a speck of light, dimming through the gold-grey film that, atom by atom, was devouring her helmet.

Valley tried to say something, anything. Failed.

Julian was sobbing on the other end. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so kzzzzzzchchchcffft-” and that was it. Her radio was gone.

“Oh god,” she breathed to herself, to no one. “Oh god,” I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. She sobbed once, twice, and then, with tears pooling in her eyes and the Prince of Cats invisible through the liquid, she found a pocket of calm, like stepping from a noisy bar onto a cool, quiet street.

Something brushed against her hand, and she cried out, startled. Her vision was still blurred by tears, and the thing dissolving her space suit was like an iridescent veil across the glass of her helmet, but through it all she could see the outline of her hand.

Not her glove.

Her hand. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 874: Common Speech

Escape Pod 874: Common Speech is an Escape Pod original.

This story deals with plagues and description of injuries.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:28 — 55.6MB)

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Common Speech

By Elise Stephens

Dr. Jaiyesimi Obiaka tugged at her sweat-damp collar, wiped her eyes, and tried to focus on the copied pages of the final experiment she and Ganiru had created together. Just looking over his familiar handwriting blurred her vision with tears.

Jai’s colleagues had told her to stay home, to take time to grieve, but she’d allowed herself just two days to mourn her husband’s death before donning her lab coat again. She had to be pragmatic. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 866: The Sea Goddesss’ Bloom

Escape Pod 866: The Sea Goddesss’ Bloom is an Escape Pod original.

Post-apocalyptic themes and war.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 47:10 — 65.2MB)

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The Sea Goddess’ Bloom

By Uchechukwu Nwaka

There is doubt in my heart.

Here, in the Blackwater, doubt is dangerous.

Doubt is rancid. Like slitting the mud-smeared belly of a catfish, only to find its guts blackened by pollution, then watching it spill back into the blacker waters of the creek. Blackwater is a literal name; it is not symbolic. These people do not care about legacies. The only thing that matters is continuity. Continuity does not require permanence.

At least Oba says so. Surely Oba cannot be wrong.

Yet I doubt. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 859: Pen Pal (Part 2 of 2)

Pen Pal was originally published in Vintage Worlds (2018).

Some cursing, suggestion of violence, and death.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:25 — 57.4MB)

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(Continued from Part 1)

Pen Pal

By Grant Canterbury

 

August 8, 2005

Meliari Thulissia

General Delivery

Tharsis Station

 

Dear Thu,

 

Well I officially graduated from high school! And I have been itching to get out into the world for a long time but right now honestly I am not liking the look of it. We had been planning to go to Disneyworld after graduation but we did Disneyland again instead. That was fine actually. Mom and Dad decided Florida was not such a great idea because gulguthroi. And I had to agree with them. It has gotten really bad. They have chameleon skin and they hide in shallow water which is everywhere down there, and they are basically eating up all of the wildlife in the Everglades. And also people. And especially folks who used to own skipperjacks, it seems. Apparently the deep soulful looks that made them popular at pet stores were more like, um, imprinting on future prey. And their big raspy tentacles also work okay at opening doors in the middle of the night. There are like thousands of people who have disappeared. Oh yeah, they made it illegal to own skipperjacks, of course. And so a bunch of pet stores, crooked or dumb, went and dumped theirs in the nearest creek. Christ. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 858: Pen Pal (Part 1 of 2)

Pen Pal was originally published in Vintage Worlds (2018).

Some cursing and suggestion of violence.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:20 — 47.6MB)

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Pen Pal

By Grant Canterbury

December Third, 1996

 

Meliari Thulissia

General Delivery

Tharsis Station

 

Dear Meliari,

Hello!!  My name is Mary and I am nine years old.  I got your name for a pen pal and they said you were the first pen pal on Mars.  This is the first time I have written a letter to Mars to.   So I will tell you about me and how things are here in Oregon.  And if you can tell me about yourself and what Mars is like that would be great!  I am interested in mars but I have never been there yet.  There is a book in the library that has pictures, I like the one with the little boats and orange trees on the grand canal.  I mean the trees are orange not that they have oragnes.  Here our trees are green except in fall.  Right now they have lost their leaves. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 852: The Pieces That Bind

The Pieces that Bind first appeared in On The Premises, issue 35.

Death and loss.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:29 — 46.5MB)

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The Pieces that Bind

By Carol Scheina

The first thing Georgia knew for certain was that the woman rummaging through the canned beans and peas in the pantry was not her grandma, even though she looked exactly like her, right down to the nasty black cigar in hand.

Except that Georgia had just plucked the cigar out of Gran’s hand, for it was 2 p.m. and time for the older woman’s afternoon siesta. In the other room, Georgia could hear the television cheerfully offering a miracle knife that could be hers for just three easy payments. The teen glanced through the doorway, and yes, indeed, right in front of the television was Gran, resting in her chair like rising yeast, filling every nook with her body’s slow breathing.

Gran often fell asleep to the sound of infomercials with her lit cigar dangling loosely between her fingers, ready to set the house on fire. Georgia imagined the smoke snatching their lives away with a puff, so she was always on the alert for falling cigars. The one in the teen’s hand still felt warm.

In the kitchen, the not-Gran turned and puffed her cigar, sending out plumes of smoke smelling heavily like laundry detergent. Eyes locked on Georgia.

The second thing Georgia knew for certain was that not-Gran was an alien. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 840: The Tyrant Lizard (and Her Plus One) / Alien Invader or Assistive Device?

The Tyrant Lizard (and Her Plus One) first appeared in Drabblecast in August 2021.

Alien Invader or Assistive Device? first appeared in Robot Dinosaurs in April 2020.

Crude language, violence, gore, and death.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:04 — 54.1MB)

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The Tyrant Lizard (and Her Plus One)

By John Wiswell

Dinosaurs don’t want to kill you; they just don’t care that you’re there. More people have been sat on by brontosauruses than have been eaten by all the theropods combined. Since I joined security on the archipelago, 82% of dinosaur-related human casualties were from tourists who got too close during mating season. And the four times I’ve seen a deinonychus attack someone, they’ve always left them uneaten. Why? For the same reason bears and sharks tend to leave victims alive: because humans taste like shit. (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 827: The Wrong Side of the Sky

Escape Pod 827: The Wrong Side of the Sky is an Escape Pod original.

Brief description of death and disposal of a body.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:29 — 35.5MB)

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The Wrong Side of the Sky

By Raymond Roach

There’s an old woman who lives in the desert, and who has lived in the desert a very long time. So, too, have her people, but many of them have gone, while she remains. She’s old enough that she should have a child on her back, or even a grandchild, but she doesn’t. When she was a girl, her people crossed the desert back and forth in an intricate network of traveling families, constantly intersecting; so many of them are gone, now, that the old woman can spend days at a time in perfect solitude without ever seeing another traveler cross the horizon, much less her own path.

So she flies alone, the fat brown barrel of her body slung easily between wide black wings, over the desert. It isn’t an endless desert, but it’s broad enough that even from the thin cold ceiling of the sky, this woman can’t see the edges. What she’s looking for—what she finds—are the far-flung speckles of green that make constellations of the smooth and trackless sands, those points which turn a formless emptiness into meaningful space.
(Continue Reading…)

Black Future Month

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Escape Pod 807: T _ ME

T _ ME originally appeared in Electric Velocipede #20, Winter 2010.

Some cursing; physical and mental peril.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:03:07 — 87.2MB)

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T _ ME

By Alex Jennings

The portable classroom was larger than Joan Ellen had expected. Lit from overhead with fluorescent lights and busy with seventh-grade artwork, it smelled of chalk dust, old books, and refrigerated air. It reminded Joan Ellen of home. These days, most everything reminded Joan Ellen of home – or at least how far she was from it. She tried to pay attention, but now Joan felt the yawning chasm of distance, the thousands upon thousands of miles between Tunis and DC.

“I’ll put this as simply as I can,” Mrs. Thornton said. “Patrick is a brilliant boy.”

Liz Thornton was Patrick’s homeroom teacher. She was a heavy-set fortyish woman with close-cropped brown hair and a mouth that bunched up at the corners. Like many of the teachers here at ACST, Mrs. Thornton had come overseas with the Peace Corps, married, and stayed.

“I had a hard time getting through to him in our first few weeks together,” Mrs. Thornton said, “but I think his last essay assignment represents a breakthrough. He – I have it here.”

The teacher opened a manila folder on her desk blotter and handed Joan a short typed manuscript crawling with red pen marks.

Joan Ellen frowned as her eyes slid over the heading at the top of the page:

What Comes After Science? (Continue Reading…)

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Escape Pod 787: Ascend, Exalt, Love, Propagate, Rise!

Escape Pod 787: Ascend, Exalt, Love, Propagate, Rise! is an Escape Pod original.

Suggestions of sex and description of sexual assault.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:39 — 34.3MB)

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Ascend, Exalt, Love, Propagate, Rise!

By Sarah Kumari

The Glory smolders through Jehanne’s bloodstream, pulsing its encouragement.

The rivals who have survived along with him–officially ‘Fellow Eminents’ now that selection is over–twitch and moan as their addiction is quenched. Within minutes they are preening, flexing their muscles, stomping, or singing to Mother Elethra.

Jehanne’s training allows him to douse the call, to batter it down with a deliberate shifting of delta waves. He visualizes his metabolism disassembling the compound at industrial speed. This works for the moment.

In the crowd that fills the EverReach company spaceship, Indrine, the rebel woman pretending to be Jehanne’s mother, clutches the hand of the girl playing his sister. They are mixed in with the family and friends of the other Eminents along with villagers and unrelated Fervents that have made the pilgrimage.

The crowd prays collectively, feverish in their good fortune, for the EverReach company will reward the kin of Eminents for two generations.

If Jehanne succeeds in his true mission, his family will be slaughtered. (Continue Reading…)

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