“Junk DNA? I’ll junk your DNA!” Sofia glared at Zorg.

“Apologies. It is only, don’t you find it interesting? Most of it is unused–”

“Junk? You supercilious aliens come to Earth to rein snottiness on us lowly humans? How sublime. I suppose your DNA is full of Porsches?”

Rated PG.

When Chasca turned eleven, her father took her to a ship farm, to choose her vessel.  She stood on the observation deck, evaluating the herd.  Chasca selected the farthest ship.  It faced away from the others and bumped the edges of the corral.  She understood. 

Rated  G.

I remember your touch, your taste, the way your mouth curled slightly when you said my name.

Rated PG. 

He smelled like new cars and cologne, he moved with a measured rhythm. His mouth tasted like mint toothpaste. She looked over his shoulder through the white light of the window. She was sweating into her sheets, her breath silent, and her lips thin and tight.

Rated R. Contains sex and melancholia.

Bill had no heart for this Karakuri, left behind in the empty house when his love had gone. Small and exquisite, propped at an angle on the tatami floor mat, it was the toughest puzzle he’d known. 

Rated PG. Contains puzzles.

Summers, I sleep on rooftops. Under smokestacks, beside stairs, in the sudden green of precarious gardens.

Rated PG. Contains mythical figures.

Escape Pod sends its congratulations to Gideon Fostick for winning first place in the Escape Pod flash fiction contest for stories under 300 words.

Professor Seiferd materialized in full command of his faculties. He oriented immediately on the white cliffs of Dover, towering over the English Channel. He felt the weight of his mission: he must answer the question that was vital to the Fatherland.

Rated G. Contains Nazis.

Referenced Sites:
Eulogy for Bicky Eley
PodCastle

Summary first. Escape Pod is going to miss its weekly releases for the remainder of November. We will resume in December, probably the first week.

Now the explanation.

I suppose I could just say that I’m writing this just prior to leaving for my grandmother’s funeral. She died a few weeks ago, and the memorial service is taking place in New Jersey this weekend. That would be sufficient excuse to miss a week by almost anyone’s reckoning. Add in a tough new day job, lingering physical illness, and unstable brain chemistry, and I could really play for some sympathy here. But it isn’t the complete picture.

The fact is that I need some time. I need to get regrounded, for my own health and also for the good of Escape Pod. Since May of 2005 we have not missed a week, and I’ve been very proud — perhaps hubristic — of having one of the longest uninterrupted runs in podcasting. We’ve achieved some amazing things almost by accident: we’ve become the number two SF market with about 25,000 listeners, we’ve brought attention to incredible stories by previously unknown authors, and we’ve grown into a real business with two additional podcasts. From a strategic point of view we’re doing all right. We’re not totally where I wanted to be by now, but fundamentally we’re succeeding.

But tactically, with Escape Pod in particular, I’ve been flying way too close to the ground. It’s been week-to-week and barely controlled chaos for a really long time now. My communication’s always been behind, but now it’s by months. The releases keep slipping, and sometimes I don’t know on Monday what the week’s story will be. It’s been costing me more sleep than usual. These are resolvable issues; I have a nice clear to-do list of obvious things that would make my job a lot easier. (”Better delegation” covers about half the list.) But I haven’t been stepping back to do any of them. Even when I have the time, it’s been hard to muster the energy.

Most of all, I’m afraid of losing my perspective. For a while now I’ve been pushing myself so hard on EP that it’s close to becoming more Not Fun than Fun. I’m in danger of forgetting why I’m doing it. And that is not something I can permit. If I lose my own passion for the stories, I know I won’t be the only one who suffers. That’s the point at which the podcast will start to suck.

So I’m doing a very, very difficult thing right now for the sake of long-term success: I’m letting myself fail for a few weeks. I’m taking a breather, relaxing a bit, and trying to forgive myself for doing it. I’m going to do right by my grandmother, and then I’m going to take a few days to just chill, and then I’m going to see what I need to do to get organized and get on top of the game again.

I know it’s risky to pin such things to a schedule. But I’m pretty confident in the range of this hiatus: it will not be less than two weeks, and it should not be more than four. The smart money’s on three weeks, putting us back on in the first week of December. We already have some great stuff pending. We have the next Union Dues story, and in my opinion it’s the best one yet. We have a fantastic alien world story from this year’s Cambpell Award winner, Mary Robinette Kowal. And Mur Lafferty is preparing what may be the most kickass science fiction Christmas story ever. I promise you we’ll be back soon, because dammit, I want to hear those things in audio.

Two logistical points:

First, PodCastle and Pseudopod aren’t affected. Rachel and Ann and Ben and Al are totally in the groove, and Escape Artists as a company is doing fine. This announcement only affects Escape Pod. So you’ve still got a short fiction fix, and if those aren’t enough, feel free to check out some others.

Second, I’m well aware that donors have a pretty good reason to be upset. You’re giving your money on an article of faith, after all — that we’ll use it to keep bringing you stories — and if we’re not bringing them to you, even temporarily, we’re not keeping that trust. We’ve recently had some very substantial donations, ones which I have yet to send proper thank-you messages for. (Those are coming too.) I’m hoping most of you will be cool with my reasoning here and bear with us. But if you’ve donated in the past few months and you object to this hiatus, e-mail me from your PayPal address and let me know, and I will refund your money to you, no questions asked. I would honestly rather keep your goodwill than your cash.

…So there you have it. That’s the honest explanation of what’s going on, as best I can state it. I’ll be spending the next few weeks gathering my wits, my priorities, and a team, probably in that order. And then you’ll have more stories. We’ll be back soon. In the meantime, thank you for any patience you’re willing to give.

And of course: Have Fun.

By Floris M. Kleijne.
Read by Stephen Eley.
First appeared in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, August 2005.

When Flight Control assigned us utility privileges, I don’t think they expected me to brew espresso in the centrifugal head. But the weight of the espresso machine was well within the parameters they’d set, as was my use of a couple of ounces of fresh water and a fraction of the ship’s power supply each day, so there was nothing, really, they could say or do about it. Privileges are privileges, and if the purpose was to give both of us something to keep us happy, it worked for me. My morning espresso ritual kept me sane. I looked forward to it every day.

Richard, however, wasn’t quite as tolerant as Flight Control.

Rated R. Contains violence, strong language, and disturbed individuals. Who use strong language and violence.

“I must tell you, then, that I am an old man, a very old man.” He paused momentarily. “And it happens that I have money that I must presently be leaving, and never a child have I to leave it to.” I thought of the confidence trick, and resolved I would be on the alert for the vestiges of my five hundred pounds. He proceeded to enlarge on his loneliness, and the trouble he had to find a proper disposition of his money. “I have weighed this plan and that plan, charities, institutions, and scholarships, and libraries, and I have come to this conclusion at last,”–he fixed his eyes on my face,–”that I will find some young fellow, ambitious, pure-minded, and poor, healthy in body and healthy in mind, and, in short, make him my heir, give him all that I have.” He repeated, “Give him all that I have. So that he will suddenly be lifted out of all the trouble and struggle in which his sympathies have been educated, to freedom and influence.”

I tried to seem disinterested. With a transparent hypocrisy I said, “And you want my help, my professional services maybe, to find that person.”

He smiled, and looked at me over his cigarette, and I laughed at his quiet exposure of my modest pretence.

Rated PG. Kids, don’t do drugs. Also, some profanity in the outro.

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The man opened the pack all the way to reveal a small arsenal of guns, grenades, explosives, and — oddly — knives. Very large knives. He looked up at Stanuel. “I am the attack. I’ve been asked to shut Pan down.”

“But you’re not a programmer…”

“I can do all things through explosives, who destroy for me.” The man began moving the contents of the pack inside the pockets and straps of the trenchcoat, clipped more to his belt and thigh, as well as to holsters under each arm, and then added pieces to his ankles.

He was now a walking arsenal.

But only half the pack had been emptied. The mysterious mercenary tossed it at Stanuel. “Besides, you’re going to help.”

Rated PG. Contains violence and political revolution.

She pushed off when her turn came, floating into the huge hold where she had to keep her line from tangling with other lines and stay alert for the seniors whose job it was to kill you—with their dye guns. In the Well, as throughout the ship, patches of enlivened hulls showed the view of near space through remote sensing. Here in the Well it was disorienting. Marie went into a tumble, then controlled it with a spray from her back pack. Through her enhanced visor, she could see her own team, spread out, their suits clear to her, but not to the seniors. A few of her team wore blue arm bands, not regulation, but overlooked more and more these days. Blue for the Admiral, blue for veneration—blue for sucking up to the brass.

Rated PG. It’s YA military SF. Does contain some lewd conduct.

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Nobody went home to their Elderfolk while we waited for Niles to come back. That was a rule. If Niles never came back, then we wouldn’t have to. Nobody wanted to see the meanies anyway. They had us Made and then hated us afterwards, which wasn’t fair. All arties know you love the things you Make no matter what. But Elderfolk were just-plains all grown up and they didn’t make any sense at all. Some of the younger arties started to talk about going back, but we older arties who knew Niles better said no, that we’d wait.

Three days passed before Niles came back. It was dark and everyone was sleeping but me, because little Boo’s music itched in my brain. He came in carrying big boxes, and I cried big tears of happy at that. He’d brought some new supplies, and we’d be Making again in no time flat. I watched him for a while, carrying in box after box, and finally I fell asleep. It felt good knowing he was back.

Rated PG. Contains some harsh slang and violence against the system.

Referenced Sites:
The Dispatches of Dr. Roundbottom
Philippa Ballantine’s official site

“The mayor seems to believe there’s something to this,” Tuesday said.

“Professor Berry said there was an easy way to prove him wrong: meet with you on and off for a week. If the city’s accident rate didn’t go down when we were together, and back up when we were apart, he’d return his consulting fee to the city.” The shake made a satisfying plopping sound as he poured it into the glass. “His ideas are wacked. ‘Data mining for non-intuitive connections?’ You can smell the bullshit from three pastures away.”

Rated PG. Contains profanity. Including in the closing song.

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King spots a knock-off cluster, glowing sunny in the rain, too fit, perfectly proportioned. Tear off some burnished bronze, never-burning skin. Shove it under a microscope, see the designer signature, Chinese characters like tattoos on the necks of college girls.

All ten ranked cross-country runners this season took family trips to China after school let out last year. When they’d returned and established dominance, King took the Asics guy up on his offer to join the experimental training program. Found himself running by himself, following daily instructions from an email address. King knows there’s a machine on the other end, some oracle in some data center chewing on his performance data full time. Responds only to email, immediately, all hours.

Rated R. Contains strong language, strong emotions, and moderate violence.

Humans laid the foundation for the sixth apocalypse in much the same way they’d triggered the previous ones. Having recovered their ambition after the Apocalypse of Serotonin and rebuilt their populations after the Apocalypse of Grease, they once again embarked on their species’ long term goal to wreak as much havoc as possible on the environment through carelessness and boredom. This time, the trees protested. They devoured buildings, whipped wind into hurricanes between their branches, tangled men into their roots and devoured them as mulch. In retaliation, men chopped down trees, fire-bombed jungles, and released genetically engineered insects to devour tender shoots.

The pitched battle decimated civilians on both sides, but eventually — though infested and rootless — the trees overwhelmed their opposition. Mankind was forced to send its battered representatives to a sacred grove in the middle of the world’s oldest forest and beg for a treaty.

Rated PG. Contains war, invasion, exodus, mass extinction, religious revival, and a lot of mud.

Referenced Sites:
Resonance FM
Reality Break Podcast

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I just swab my arm and administer the cocktail, a booster for my radiation immunization. The taste of brass fills my mouth in seconds, and I know that the cocktail has flooded my system. With this stuff burbling inside, I can stare down three sieverts without blinking, or, more importantly, losing my immune system, teeth, hair, and intestines.

When I finish with my dose, I grab the skin on the newbie’s arm, swab her and shoot her up, too. “Ow!” She jumps and rubs her arm. I watch carefully to see her smack her lips at the taste. “You could’ve warned me.”

“No time,” I say, doctoring Ken and the others just as abruptly. We’re pressed, and they know it.

We’re all nice and anodized on the inside at 8:12. We’re waiting for 8:16, or thereabouts. There aren’t any atomic clocks in 1945, so all times are approximate, internally speaking. And from here on in, there’s no point speaking any other way.

Rated PG. Contains mass destruction and graphic descriptions of the wounded.

That’s when I see my new boss. Four feet of trouble. Brunette variety. Tear tracks cutting through the dirt on her face, wearing jeans that were already old when Molly Dolls were nothing more than molded plastic and fantasy homes.

She’s no idiot, though. “I want the Debutante persona,” she says. “You’re still not Debutante Molly are you?”

I like a girl who doesn’t need me to explain everything. “That’s right, kid,” I pull my blonde hair back into a pony tail and cover it with my fedora.

“Why do you keep coming out as a Petey persona?” Poor kid sounds like she’s about to cry. Don’t blame her for wanting Debutante Molly. Debbie’s the kind of girl who reminds me why God bothered with Adam’s rib in the first place. As wholesome and satisfying as a virgin daiquiri on a hot day. Everything I’m not. “Petey’s not even a girl’s name,” the kid says.

Rated PG. A somewhat dark kid’s story; contains parental tragedy and complex social issues.

Every now and then we strike it rich. Usually we make a profit. Once in a while we just break even. There’s only been one world where we actually lost money; I still remember it — Greenwillow. Except that it wasn’t green, and there wasn’t a willow on the whole damned planet.

There was a robot, though. We found him, me and the Baroni, in a barn, half-hidden under a pile of ancient computer parts and self-feeders for mutated cattle. We were picking through the stuff, wondering if there was any market for it, tossing most of it aside, when the sun peeked in through the doorway and glinted off a prismatic eye.

“Hey, take a look at what we’ve got here,” I said. “Give me a hand digging it out.”

Rated R. Contains profanity and some sadness.

If anyone cares to know for purposes of sending cards or flowers, etc., he’s at the Catholic Medical Center in Manchester, New Hampshire. You’re also welcome to send cards via us (Jeffrey DeRego, c/o Escape Artists Inc., PO Box 1538, Stone Mountain GA 30086) and I’ll see that they get forwarded to him.

I asked if any financial assistance would be useful, and without getting into overly personal details, the answer is “yes.” The DeRegos aren’t in a good position right now in terms of employment, and while they’re applying for state assistance, surgery of this magnitude is still certain to have a very harsh impact. Escape Artists will be making a contribution, and with Cindy’s permission, I’m asking the Escape Pod listenership to help out.

I’ve set up a PayPal address just for this purpose under our corporate account. If you’d like to help Jeff out, please send your contributions via PayPal to derego@escapepod.org. (I hope to have a better link on the sidebar by tonight.) We’ll cover PayPal fees, so 100% of funds donated will go to defray Jeff’s and Cindy’s medical expenses. I’ll keep that PayPal address open through September.

Please follow your conscience on whether to help. Jeff’s given us some of our favorite EP stories, and I’m happy to do whatever I can for him. If you see fit to help him out too, I’m sure he and his wife would be very grateful. Thanks for your attention.

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I raise my hand and she stops chattering. “Just tell me who you are and where I am.”

She freezes and blinks twice. “Tell you where you are? Cap, you’re home. This is the Cleveland Pyramid. I’m Sarah Shadow. You don’t recognize me?”

“That doesn’t mean anything to me!” I stand up. Frustration washes over me like heat from a blast furnace, and worse, my stomach is rumbling. “I woke up today. The first person I saw was you, but I’ve never seen you before in my life. I figured as long as I was in the hospital, or wherever, I’d start to remember, but it’s a blank. Where am I, what is this place, what are you people?” I point at her costume. “And that, what’s that, are you part of a circus act or something?”

Rated R. Contains profanity, sexual innuendo, and a bit of soap opera.

Referenced Sites: Playing for Keeps by Mur Lafferty

Now to the news: once again, Escape Pod and Minx’s Polyamory Weekly will be hosting a joint meetup at Dragon*Con. Just like last year, we’ll be doing a group brunch on SUNDAY, AUGUST 31 AT 11:30 AM, at the Gordon Biersch Brewpub. It’s about a mile north from the hotels, but an easy walk or cab ride. This time we have the restaurant’s upper mezzanine reserved, so it’s like having the place to ourselves. Ask at the front for the Escape Pod meetup.

Generally, I expect to hit very little programming at this year’s D*C. My intent for almost the entire con is just to hang out at the bars or parties, and socialize and relax. If you’d like to join me, follow my Twitter feed to find out where I am or drop me a line to met me know where you are. And if you know where the good parties are — let me know too!

Thanks, and we’ll have the next EP up as soon as possible. (It’s a Union Dues story, if that helps with the waiting.)

“Fenneman?”

The studio audience laughed loudly, as it always did when Groucho turned, in mock desperation or annoyance, to his long-suffering, hopelessly square announcer. Groucho’s voice slightly increased in pitch whenever he said Fenneman’s name, as if he were just at the edge of losing his celebrated cool. This half-squawk had been funny in the stateroom scene of A Night at the Opera (”Steward! Steward!”), and it was still funny on You Bet Your Life twenty-five years later. He was a pro, Groucho was, and I did right by him; I modulated that pitch myself.

Rated R. Contains profanity, and real and simulated persons behaving badly.

Featured Site:
Playing for Keeps

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When the bus reaches the corner, they climb onboard, taking seats on their side and evening out the ride so it doesn’t feel so much like we’ll tip over. We rattle along past road construction, the men working behind screens that are consecrated by the priests each morning as part of the men’s quarter, and resanctified to the women at quitting time. The sun already pelts down mercilessly and they will have to leave off working soon.

We enter the government quarter and arrive at the Children’s Center, a long concrete brick of a building with windows shielded from the sun by an open grid of deep squares made of the same material. The morning light turns it into a chessboard of glaring white and dark shadow. I don’t work with the children, who are on the lower floors and the sheltered playground of the courtyard, but toil away with records on the upper floors. Unlike Jamin or Zel, I am permitted by the job to work alongside women, but only because I completed my theological studies and am a candidate for the priesthood. My superiors do not know of the taint on my soul. Do not know yet, I should say, and when they discover it I will never be ordained or promoted.

Rated R. Contains explicit sexual activity.

In the meantime, by way of apology and spurred by some demand for it in the forums, here’s a minor bonus for those interested: the raw, mostly unedited recording session from Dr. Bowie’s and my reading of “How I Mounted Goldie, Saved My Partner Lori, and Sniffed Out the People’s Justice” last week. If you enjoy knowing how the sausage gets made, this particular file is a slightly more entertaining example than most. This isn’t going into the feed, because it isn’t really an Escape Pod episode; you’ll have to either listen in the browser, or right-click on it and download it yourself if you want to hear it.

Q: What happened when you arrived at the address in question?

A: Okay. My skulltop showed me which house, and I ran toward it. A man and three dogs ran out the door. One of them was a bitch with pretty haunches. She was in heat, and I really really really liked the way she smelled. I wanted to run after her, but I knew I should go after the man. So I did. Even though I liked the way she smelled!

Rated R. Contains profanity, violence, and canine sexuality.

Referenced Sites:
CrimeWAV Crime Fiction Podcast

A film by Andrew Stanton

Reviewed by Ryan Nichols

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Senator Wu accepted Twing’s seed out of courtesy, although she had no intention of conceiving his child. Twing of Sails had thrown this party in his house in her honour, but he wasn’t as free with kilojoules as he was with genetic material, and Senator Wu wasn’t prepared to funnel the heat donations of her two crèche mates to bring another man’s child to the World. She acidified the pores in her tentacle and waved it around, letting the current carry away the dead spores. She smiled at Twing and a wave of blue burst from his centre and radiated towards the thin membranes that rippled on the edge of his disc-shaped body.

He didn’t look bad, but he wasn’t as comely as Senator Wu. Her body was an almost perfect sphere, and she was well aware of it. Wherever she went, she took care to rotate every few minutes, lest gravity pull on her too long in any one direction and tug her gelatinous figure out of shape.

Rated PG. Contains alien reproduction, politics, and other sordid topics.

Referenced Sites:
The Daily Cabal

They try everything. Cellular toxins. DNA replication inhibitors. Anti-sense nucleic acids. Artillery. Great bolts of lightning. Nothing stops him, it only makes the monster angrier. They try mutagens, teratogens, carcinogens, neurotoxins, hemotoxins, genotoxins — they think that toxins in the environment created the monster, and maybe toxins can kill it. Maybe two wrongs can make a right.

They don’t, apparently. I worry about the residues left in the ground after the monster’s moved on. He’s going up and down the eastern seaboard. Janie talks about flying out there to help, but she doesn’t want to get stomped on. Who would? A team of guys from work drive across the country to do whatever they can. They figure that patent annuities can still get paid in their absence. I want to go, but I have to stay to help my mom. That’s my fight.

Rated PG. Contains violence on a grand scale and illness on a human scale.

Referenced Sites:
GUIDOLON The Giant Space Chicken
Well-Told Tales

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First, there’s the pressure.

But not like night time dreams. These are special.

Rated R. Contains children engaging in extremely dangerous practices. Parental guidance STRONGLY recommended.

Referenced Sites:
Brave Men Run: A Novel of the Sovereign Era

“…So you want to talk about flying saucers? I was afraid of that.

“This happens every damn time I’m blackmailed into babysitting you insomniacs, while Talkback Larry escapes to Bimini for a badly needed rest. I’m supposed to field call-in questions about astronomy and outer space for two weeks. You know, black holes and comets? But it seems we always have to spend the first night wrangling over puta UFOs.

“…Now, don’t get excited, sir…. Yeah, I’m just a typical ivory tower scientist, out to repress any trace of unconventional thought. Whatever you say, buddy.”

Rated PG. Contains some sexual situations and scattered profanity in both English and Spanish.

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In the civilized places closer to Hegemony space, you don’t see many bodies in the street in the first place. When you do, they’re always swarmed with sheriffs, marshals, constables, morticians and the like. Then the body gets moved fast, so as to not ruffle the civilized folk. The rest happens behind closed doors.

Some towns don’t ever get bodies in the street. The only deaths are from sickness or accidents or old age. But I don’t tend to get to those towns so much, since they frown on my whoring profession. The towns I work in, everyone carries a gun. Being a pretty woman in my line of work, I carry two.

Rated R. Contains sex, violence, profanity, the quick, and the dead.

Referenced Sites:
The Nautilus Engine
Geek Dad T-shirt
Geek Mom T-shirt