Beatrix Released By Shaenon K. Garrity The lichen in the cupboard has at last begun to sing. It sings in two-part harmony, bel canto, essaying a faultless duet with itself. What a strange and lovely fairy! I am convinced more and more that my earlier theory was correct, that the lichen is a bipartite organism …
Caesura by Hayley Stone Priya begins by striking the words love, hate, heart, and feel from the computer’s vocabulary, and blocks the internet. It isn’t with malicious intent. She does it on a whim, as with most things: fixing herself tacos at eleven o’clock at night, taking a right instead of a left turn against …
AUTHOR: Beth Goder NARRATOR: Amy H. Sturgis HOST: Alasdair Stuart Murder or a Duck is an Escape Pod original. Discuss on our forums. For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our Wikia Thank you for visiting us on Facebook and Twitter about the author… Beth Goder worked as an archivist at Stanford before becoming a full-time mom […]
Oracle By Dominica Phetteplace The two biggest applications for predictive software are killing people and selling things. Rita was quite successful at the latter. She founded a nail-polish-of-the-month club that used an online personality quiz to determine customer preferences. Bold cremes forEscape Pod 640: Paradise Regained - Escape Pod
Paradise Regained By Edward Lerner My head hurts. I expect it: this is winter. I want it to be spring. Paradise does not ask what I want. The winter is young, and I think the dogs are not yet so hungry as to attack me. Still, I hold tight to my spear. Dogs or no …
Disarm By Vylar Kaftan Excerpt We kept in touch through the war, when he messaged me about marching through upstate New York. He always started the same way: “Dear Ryan, Please come kick my commanding officer in the balls.” Then he’d tell me about the latest mess–cracks in their radiation suitsEscape Pod 642: Oracle - Escape Pod
Oracle By Dominica Phetteplace The two biggest applications for predictive software are killing people and selling things. Rita was quite successful at the latter. She founded a nail-polish-of-the-month club that used an online personality quiz to determine customer preferences. Bold cremes for basics, chunky glitters for the outrageous, and dark, sparkly metallics for edgy, forward-thinking geniuses …
The Revolution, Brought to You by Nike by Andrea Phillips 1. THE BRIEF Corazon clicked to the slide she’d been dreading: long-term trends for brand engagement. It was dire. She focused on the smudgy mirror at the far end of the conference room, looking past her team to her own reflection. She pEscape Pod 643: Disarm (Flashback Friday) - Escape Pod
Disarm By Vylar Kaftan Excerpt We kept in touch through the war, when he messaged me about marching through upstate New York. He always started the same way: “Dear Ryan, Please come kick my commanding officer in the balls.” Then he’d tell me about the latest mess–cracks in their radiation suits, or toxic …
The Revolution, Brought to You by Nike, Part 2 by Andrea Phillips 5. THE LAUNCH Launch day came on a bright Tuesday, amid a flurry of reports that the executive office had pushed through a series of contracts requiring the president’s own hotel properties be the preferred vendor for all federalEscape Pod 644: The Revolution, Brought to You by Nike (Part 1) - Escape Pod
The Revolution, Brought to You by Nike by Andrea Phillips 1. THE BRIEF Corazon clicked to the slide she’d been dreading: long-term trends for brand engagement. It was dire. She focused on the smudgy mirror at the far end of the conference room, looking past her team to her own reflection. She pulled her shoulders …
Imma Gonna Finish You Off by Marina J. Lostetter On the examining table lounged a body. It was an unremarkable body–rather wrinkly, with an inordinate amount of hair in all the wrong places and too few clothes for most people’s liking, but otherwise nothing to write your congressman about. The Escape Pod 645: The Revolution, Brought to You by Nike (Part 2) - Escape Pod
The Revolution, Brought to You by Nike, Part 2 by Andrea Phillips 5. THE LAUNCH Launch day came on a bright Tuesday, amid a flurry of reports that the executive office had pushed through a series of contracts requiring the president’s own hotel properties be the preferred vendor for all federal travel going forward. Another …
Me, Meg, and The Thing By Gian-Paul Bergeron I’m Inroom making honest credit, doing Daily, counting breaths, when Meg messages me with extreme urgent markation to say that she got a Thing and I’m like Meg, you loon, please, and then she stresses the urgency with absolute dire markation – i.e. tEscape Pod 647: Imma Gonna Finish You Off (Flashback Friday) - Escape Pod
Imma Gonna Finish You Off by Marina J. Lostetter On the examining table lounged a body. It was an unremarkable body–rather wrinkly, with an inordinate amount of hair in all the wrong places and too few clothes for most people’s liking, but otherwise nothing to write your congressman about. The only thing special about the …
Me, Meg, and The Thing By Gian-Paul Bergeron I’m Inroom making honest credit, doing Daily, counting breaths, when Meg messages me with extreme urgent markation to say that she got a Thing and I’m like Meg, you loon, please, and then she stresses the urgency with absolute dire markation – i.e. there has never been …
Jerry pulls back the throttle and squints through the window of the cockpit at the little abandoned village below. “Silent Valley,” he says in a voice-over style like in the promotional videos.…Escape Pod 656: Into the Breach (Flashback Friday) - Escape Pod
Into the Breach By Malon Edwards I’m off my bunk and into my jodhpurs, knee-high leather boots and flight jacket the moment the long range air attack klaxons seep into my nightly dream about Caracara. Muscle memory and Secret Service training kick in; I’m on auto-pilot (no pun intended) and a good ways down the …
And Then There Were (N-One), Part 2 by Sarah Pinsker Not me, my logic brain understood, even though some tiny part of me screamed something was wrong. I’d made it through the entire afternoon talking with people who were more like me than an identical twin would be, but the body was somehow morEscape Pod 652: And Then There Were (N-One), (Part 1) - Escape Pod
And Then There Were (N-One) by Sarah Pinsker I considered declining the invitation. It was too weird, too expensive, too far, too dangerous, too weird. Way too weird. An invitation like that would never come again. I’d regret it if I didn’t go. It lay on our kitchen table for three weeks while I argued …
And Then There Were (N-One), Part 3 by Sarah Pinsker Back in the hallway, I dug in my bag for a pen. I’d normally have taken notes while she talked, but I’d had a feeling it would have shut her up. Instead of a pen, I came up with the dinner roll I’d taken earlier. …Escape Pod 653: And Then There Were (N-One) (Part 2) - Escape Pod
And Then There Were (N-One), Part 2 by Sarah Pinsker Not me, my logic brain understood, even though some tiny part of me screamed something was wrong. I’d made it through the entire afternoon talking with people who were more like me than an identical twin would be, but the body was somehow more real. …
Escape Pod 654: And Then There Were (N-One) (Part 3)
And Then There Were (N-One), Part 3 by Sarah Pinsker Back in the hallway, I dug in my bag for a pen. I’d normally have taken notes while she talked, but I’d had a feeling it would have shut her up. Instead of a pen, I came up with the dinner roll I’d taken earlier. …
Escape Pod 655: And Then There Were (N-One) (Part 4)
And Then There Were (N-One), Part 4 by Sarah Pinsker Back in my room, I stripped my wet clothes off and replaced them with another T-shirt and boxer shorts. The whiskey didn’t do the job I’d hoped it would, so I spent the night in imaginary conversation with Mabel. The rain battering the window filled …
Escape Pod 650: Some Things I Probably Should Have Mentioned Earlier (LIVE) - Escape Pod
I’m sorry I waited so long to tell you this, but I really hate your vacation cabin. Everything about it creeps me out. The sound of crickets at night makes my skin crawl. via Pocket
When the intercom on his desk buzzed, Marc’s head snapped up, instantly awake. He’d been dozing in his chair. His finger stabbed the button that told the boss he was on his way. He stood up and straightened his rumpled gray suit before glancing at h…
Escape Pod 641: Flash Fiction Contest Winners - Escape Pod
Blender whirred with sympathy. “I did,” said Toaster, “and everything seems to be working. It was like my settings had been changed. I guess they had. It’s not my fault if Owner gives me the wrong settings.” via Pocket
Escape Pod 637: At the Village Vanguard (Ruminations on Blacktopia) - Escape Pod
In this, the 25th anniversary of the founding of the lunar colony, First World (colloquially called Blacktopia by its residents), The Indianapolis Recorder, the nation’s oldest-surviving African-American newspaper, continues its series re-visiting k…
Escape Pod 630: Midnight Blue (Flashback Friday) - Escape Pod
He’d never seen a burgundy before. Kim held it in her lap, tapped it with her finger. She was probably tapping it to bring attention to it, and Jeff didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of asking to see it, but he really wanted to see it. via …
Lieutenant Sirella Nacleth breathes in green dust and tries not to cough. Her feet feel too heavy to move, but she forces herself to walk on, ignoring the heat that blasts down and around her, heat carried by winds that do nothing to cool the air fr…
Escape Pod 634: On a Clear Day You Can See All the Way to Conspiracy (Flashback Friday) - Escape Pod
You’re listening to the Mike Colavito Show on Cleveland’s home for straight talk, WCUY 1200. The opinions expressed on this program do not reflect those of WCUY, its management, or its sponsors. Fair warning; I’m in a mood today, folks. via Pocket
Mother Tongues By S. Qiouyi Lu “Thank you very much,” you say, concluding the oral portion of the exam. You gather your things and exit back into the brightly lit hallway. Photos line the walls: the Eiffel Tower, the Great Wall of China, Machu Picch…
Escape Pod 627: Humans Die, Stars Fade - Escape Pod
They come to study. Not me. Not really. No, they come for Aerik—what he’s become. What I suppose we both will become when the slow swell of time and gravity finally draw us together wholly. via Pocket
After the terrible push to be free of the Earth was past, we could stand again. In a while, the engineers had said, everything would float, but for now we were still accelerating. via Pocket
Escape Pod 635: After Midnight at the ZapStop - Escape Pod
When the guy with the horns came in, I knew it wouldn’t be a good shift. He scowled when the ZapStop’s doors refused to slide open for him. Ignoring the late-hours doorbell, he pounded one meaty fist on the shatterproof polycarbonate. via Pocket
Escape Pod 626: Fire Rode the Cold Wind - Escape Pod
The brown woman came to Vrau from the sky, without a name of her own. Piarcu knew that she was nameless, even though the women of his family only whispered it when they thought no one else could hear. via Pocket