Escape Pod

By Escape Artists FoundationFiction Drama Science Fiction

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Typical duration
41 min
per episode

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Escape Pod episodes

October 19, 2017 Escape Pod 598: On the Fringes of the Fractal
On the Fringes of the Fractal
By Greg van Eekhout

I was working the squirt station on the breakfast shift at Peevs Burgers when I learned that my best friend’s life was over.

The squirt guns were connected by hoses to tanks, each tank containing a different slew formula. Orders appeared in lime-green letters on my screen, and I squirted accordingly. Two Sausage Peev Sandwiches was two squirts from the sausage slew gun. An order of Waffle Peev Sticks was three small dabs of waffle slew. The slew warmed and hardened on the congealer table, and because I’d paid attention during the twenty-minute training course and applied myself, I knew just when the slew was ready. I was a slew expert.

Sherman was the other squirter on duty that morning. The orders were coming in fast and he was already wheezing on account of his exercise-induced asthma. His raspy breaths interfered with my ability to concentrate. You really have to concentrate because after four hours of standing and squirting there’s the danger of letting your mind wander and once you do that you can lose control of the squirts and end up spraying food slew all over the kitchen like a fire hose.

“Wasted slew reflects badly on you,” said one of the inspirational posters in the employee restroom.
36 min
October 12, 2017 Escape Pod 597: Ms. Figgle-DeBitt‘s Home for Wayward A.I.s
Author : Kurt Pankau Narrator : Matt Dovey Host : S.B. Divya Audio Producer : Adam Pracht Discuss on Forums Escape Pod 597: Ms. Figgle-DeBitt‘s Home for Wayward A.I.s is an Escape Pod original. Ms. Figgle-DeBitt’s Home for Wayward A.I.s By Kurt Pankau I watch with hope as Ms. Figgle-DeBitt samples a slice of caramelized […]
36 min
October 12, 2017 Escape Pod 597: Ms. Figgle-DeBitt‘s Home for Wayward A.I.s
Ms. Figgle-DeBitt’s Home for Wayward A.I.s
By Kurt Pankau

I watch with hope as Ms. Figgle-DeBitt samples a slice of caramelized banana upside-down cake. She takes a nibble and seems pleased. She sweeps cybernetic fingers through the shock of gray hair that sits on the human half of her face, a gesture I’ve learned is contemplative. She takes a larger bite, chews, and grimaces. She spits it out into a trash can.

I’m not upset by this. I do not get upset. I get better.

“This is definitely an improvement, Charlie,” she says. “If I may make a recommendation? Next time, peel the bananas first.”

“Of course, Ms. Figgle-DeBitt,” I say. Another foolish mistake.

“This recipe is important to you, isn’t it?” she asks. “You’ve tried to make it three times this week.”

“It’s the recipe that ended my career,” I say.
36 min
October 05, 2017 Escape Pod 596: The Wind You Touch When You Run
Author : James Beamon Narrator : Dominick Rabrun Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Adam Pracht Discuss on Forums Escape Pod 596: The Wind You Touch When You Run is an Escape Pod original. The Wind You Touch When You Run By James Beamon This pursuit starts as they all start, going after the […]
39 min
October 05, 2017 Escape Pod 596: The Wind You Touch When You Run
The Wind You Touch When You Run
By James Beamon

This pursuit starts as they all start, going after the Underground Railroad. It will end as it always ends, with us feeding the Minotaur. The in-between is where I tell tales.

I wipe sweat from my eyes while my son Langston squints under the blue-white light of this alien sun, scanning the swollen green and purple foliage for signs of recent human passage. He points his machete at a fresh boot print obscured by dense undergrowth. We pick up pursuit, south. It reminds me of a little-known facet of my favorite story.

“The original Underground Railroad ran south to Spanish controlled Florida a lot longer than it ran north,” I tell Langston. “I’m talking more than two hundred years, going as far back as the fifteen hundreds, and lasting until well after the Revolution.”

“Unless your railroad story leads to Talya, I’m not interested, Saul.”

This is the nearest I’ve been to Langston in six years and I see he’s grown into a strong man. We’re shirtless because of the heat and his skin is beautifully black like a scarab’s shell, free of all the gashes and scars I’ve accumulated in the jungle. His dreadlocks are tied into a crude ponytail that hangs down the center of his back. Intensity burns in his eyes as he navigates the jungle.

“What you want is through the wilderness,” I tell him. “She’s three hours ahead of us, which could put her ten miles out or ten feet depending on what she’s run into out there. Either way, we can catch her before nightfall.”
39 min
September 28, 2017 Escape Pod 595: Islands in the Dark
Author : Sarah Goldman Narrator : Karen Bovenmyer Host : Tina Connolly Audio Producer : Adam Pracht Discuss on Forums Escape Pod 595: Islands in the Dark is an Escape Pod original. Islands in the Dark By Sarah Goldman Road out from Kaysee was boring as ever. The kids we’d picked up this time weren’t anything […]
41 min
September 28, 2017 Escape Pod 595: Islands in the Dark
Islands in the Dark
By Sarah Goldman

Road out from Kaysee was boring as ever. The kids we’d picked up this time weren’t anything to sneeze at: soft-spoken boy with eyes too teched up to blink, real young bratty kid who kept trying to backseat drive me from the hatch of a goddamn pickup, and a girl I hadn’t quite gotten a read on yet. Made me nervous. New things tended to do that. Hal would know their names and their stories, hers included, but that wasn’t my job; socializing was his thing and driving was mine. Talking hasn’t ever been my strong suit. Neither has caring. But I was curious.

I let Hal take the wheel and swung myself back into the hatch. Quiet boy with the bright eyes spoke to me first. Asked me my name and rubbed at the place behind his ear where we’d cut the interface out. Thanks to the spray-on shit Hal kept around, it was scarring up already. We’d grabbed a few cans while we were in the city—we could grow a lot out here, but medical supplies could be hard to come by.

I said, “Call me Lanz.”

“You’re going the wrong way,” the bratty kid told me.

“And how would you know?” I asked. “You ever been out here before?”

“Once, on a bet,” she said. She tucked her hair back and wrinkled her nose. “I made it two hours before my ears hurt too much.”

“We’re going the right way,” said the inscrutable girl. Not soft but not loud either: steady like a lighttrain locked to its tracks. She didn’t say it like she trusted me. It was like she just knew better than the rest of us.
41 min
September 21, 2017 Escape Pod 594: The Spice Portrait
Author : J.M. Evenson Narrator : Stephanie Malia Morris Host : Divya Breed Audio Producer : Adam Pracht Discuss on Forums Escape Pod 594: The Spice Portrait is an Escape Pod original. The Spice Portrait By J.M. Evenson They said my love for my daughter was excessive, that I made her weak by kissing her and […]
33 min
September 21, 2017 Escape Pod 594: The Spice Portrait
The Spice Portrait
By J.M. Evenson

They said my love for my daughter was excessive, that I made her weak by kissing her and singing in her ear at night.

They also said I killed her.

My mother did not believe in tenderness. She was gaunt, all teeth and hair, her face hard as a stone lion. “If she wants to be fed, she must work,” my mother said.

She hunched over a copper vat of bubbling breadbean stew, stirring to make sure it didn’t burn. Powdered white liverwort dusted her eyelashes and the edges of her black headscarf. A dozen vats boiled behind her, each with a different gaunt woman stirring it.

Three young girls carried large bundles of firewood and loosed their loads into the flames beneath the vats. They couldn’t have been more than six or seven, but their shoulders were already wide and knotted with muscles.

I looked up from my own copper vessel and snuck a glance at Damla. She was sitting in the crook of a juniper tree collecting berries. She had dark eyes ringed in lashes that curled upward at the outer corners like a cat’s and a black ponytail that spiraled down her back.

Damla was smaller than the other children, even the younger ones. She’d been premature at birth and struggled for every inch, but I was proud of her length of bone. By some miracle she’d survived infancy—many didn’t—so I still had hope she’d catch up to the others.

“She’s too young,” I said.

“Nonsense,” said my mother. “You started when you were five. Like everyone else.”
33 min
September 14, 2017 Escape Pod 593: Planetbound
Author : Nancy Fulda Narrators : Trendane Sparks and S.B. Divya Host : Mur Lafferty Audio Producer : Adam Pracht Discuss on Forums Originally appeared in CHASING SHADOWS, an anthology published by TOR books and edited by David Brin and Stephen W. Potts, January 2017 Planetbound By Nancy Fulda There’s a moment that comes, the […]
31 min