Genres:

Cast of Wonders 399: Breaking (Staff Picks 2019)

Originally appeared in Cast of Wonders Episode 370, August 18, 2019.

Terminal Illness

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Breaking

by Maya Chhabra

Mom’s kind of bizarrely happy for someone with a daughter about to croak, but I don’t mind. She saved my life. When I collapsed, I was still only fourteen: too young to have an imprint taken. If she hadn’t found me in time, I would be dead already, and gone. Now I’m safe, and they’ve pretty much stopped everything but palliative care. I’d like to be corporeal longer, and grow human-wise, but there’s nothing more they can do.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 395: Barter Queen (Staff Picks 2019)

Originally appeared in Cast of Wonders 352, March 10, 2019.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:46 — 31.4MB)

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Barter Queen

by Sarah Pauling

Soledad lets Gabe do the introductions because most strangers see him as the more respectable sibling. His attentive green eyes stare from under thick lashes, and his hair lies flat even when it’s desperately in need of a cut.

“We want Queen Mary’s protection,” he says, brazen as anything. Soledad tries not to stare at the ground. Gabe squeezes her hand.

“What can you give her?” the man at the door asks. Huge firearms dangle from his sides.

“We got guns, for one thing. And we’re mechanics. We can fix things. Bikes.”

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 394: Five Functions of Your Bionosaur (Staff Picks 2019)

Originally published in Robot Dinosaur Fiction! (May 2018); Reprinted in Cast of Wonders, Dinovember, Episode 383, December 13, 2019.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 11:46 — 11.2MB)

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Five Functions of Your Bionosaur

by Rachael K. Jones

1.

Your parents first activate your bionosaur when they bring you home from the hospital. The bionosaur was a baby shower gift from your mom’s favorite aunt. They were nervous about its size, the stainless steel maw, the retractable razorclaws inside its stubby little arms, but the aunt had insisted. She’d programmed it herself, covered its titanium-alloy skeleton in top-grade synthskin featherscales, and pre-loaded it with educational apps.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 392: The Angel (Staff Picks 2019)

Originally appeared in Cast of Wonders, Artemis Rising 5, March 4, 2019

Terminal illness; Cancer

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The Angel

by Kate Cobey

I: Sterile

“Just don’t treat her like anything less than a person,” Mama fretted from the front row of the cab. Never mind that this was the fourth time we’d come to see her, and we’d heard the same plea every single time. Cautiously, Mama asked the white hospital archway next to her, “May we enter?”

“Card?” responded the building.

“You don’t need to be so formal. It’s just a robot,” Nina complained from the back. “It’s aaaall robots, here.”

(Continue Reading…)

Image of a robotic dinosaur

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Cast of Wonders 385: Be a Thunder, Release a Roar

Originally published in Robot Dinosaur Fiction! (May 2018)

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Be a Thunder, Release a Roar

by Osahon Ize-Iyamu

It’s January 2028 and young Uwaila watches the TV, fixated at what’s right in front of her. The dinosaurs appear with a mighty boom, with feet that hit the earth like a rumble. They make everything look so small, all humans look so little, make everybody afraid. They hold a certain kind of power Uwaila needs, a roar and gentleness that makes them perfect to watch.

(Continue Reading…)

Image of a robotic dinosaur

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Cast of Wonders 384: Sphexa, Start Dinosaur

Originally published in Robot Dinosaur Fiction! (August 2018)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:45 — 13.1MB)

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Sphexa, Start Dinosaur

by Nibedita Sen

Asha—Ash to friends—wedges the maintenance door open wide enough to slip into the darkened interior of the abandoned ride. Inside smells like rust and stale water and plastic fused with metal.

“Sphexa,” he says. “Light.”

The small robot bobbing behind him clicks, casting a circle of illumination on the concrete floor. He made Sphexa in shop class at school, patching together an old Echo, a frame salvaged from a drone, a rolling toy robot, and a few other things, because if you’re going to be that stereotype of the Indian kid good at engineering, you might as well lean all the way in.

“Reminder,” Sphexa says as they make their way down the narrow walkway lining the tunnel. “Event upcoming in two hours: Pick Mei up for prom.”

“I’m working on it, Sphexa.”

(Continue Reading…)

Image of a robotic dinosaur

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Cast of Wonders 383: Five Functions of Your Bionosaur

Originally published in Robot Dinosaur Fiction! (May 2018)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:36 — 12.9MB)

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Five Functions of Your Bionosaur

by Rachael K. Jones

1.

Your parents first activate your bionosaur when they bring you home from the hospital. The bionosaur was a baby shower gift from your mom’s favorite aunt. They were nervous about its size, the stainless steel maw, the retractable razorclaws inside its stubby little arms, but the aunt had insisted. She’d programmed it herself, covered its titanium-alloy skeleton in top-grade synthskin featherscales, and pre-loaded it with educational apps.

When your bionosaur’s eyes first flare to life, it scans tiny, squalling you and reaches out a stubby claw to rock you. When it starts humming a jazzy rendition of the Batman theme, you quiet down and sleep.

Your bionosaur can differentiate between hunger-cries and dirty-diaper-cries. When your parents realize this, they call up the aunt and apologize for doubting. But your bionosaur just keeps singing, its glowing red eyes fixed upon you like you’re the center of all gravity, the origin of its universe.

One thing your great-aunt forgot to mention: bionosaurs imprint for life.

(Continue Reading…)

silhouette of virtual human on circuit pattern 3d illustration , represent artificial technology.

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Cast of Wonders 381: The Lie Misses You

Cast of Wonders 381: The Lie Misses You is a Cast of Wonders original.

Content Warning: grief (death of family members)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:26 — 26.5MB)

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The Lie Misses You

by John Wiswell

The Lie can’t wait to see her sister again. Every night she draws another picture of the two of them together, sometimes in space, sometimes playing baseball, always in crayon, always looking shoddy like the work of her father’s left hand. But The Lie is recovering from the Contact Plague, and it affects motor functions in survivors. Her parents bring this up every time her sister calls.

She’s calling tonight, not that it’s night where her sister is stationed. The Mothership Nebraska is fighting in a place with three suns, so it’s probably always morning there. The Lie doodles a yellow crayon triple-morning while Mom and Dad squeeze together around the laptop. They try not to stare at it, pretending that cleaning their reading glasses and mending socks are just what they meant to be doing an hour after the time Vi was supposed to call.

To The Lie, that is what they meant to do. Her parents are so practical.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 375: Reclaiming Our Narratives (Banned Books Week)

Cast of Wonders 375: Reclaiming Our Narratives (Banned Books Week) is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:51 — 35.3MB)

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Our Skin Will Now Bear the Testimonies

by Innocent Chizaram Ilo

“Nduka, you better hurry or you’ll be late for school! Your breakfast is getting cold and you know you don’t like when curds form in your pap!” Aniele calls from the kitchen.

“Yes Mama,” Nduka answers from his bedroom.

The boy tiptoes to the door and gently bolts it before unbuttoning his school shirt. He stands in front of the mirror and looks at the string of words that snails along his belly. (Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 370: Breaking

Cast of Wonders 370: Breaking is a Cast of Wonders original.

Content Warning: Terminal illness

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:38 — 19.6MB)

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Breaking

by Maya Chhabra

Mom’s kind of bizarrely happy for someone with a daughter about to croak, but I don’t mind. She saved my life. When I collapsed, I was still only fourteen: too young to have an imprint taken. If she hadn’t found me in time, I would be dead already, and gone. Now I’m safe, and they’ve pretty much stopped everything but palliative care. I’d like to be corporeal longer, and grow human-wise, but there’s nothing more they can do. (Continue Reading…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 364: Remember to Breathe

Cast of Wonders 364: Remember to Breathe is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:30 — 22.0MB)

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Remember to Breathe

by Matt Dovey

Vikram watches with growing uncertainty as Isaac turns round and around, searching for a landmark in the heavy fog. Neon signs glow through it like stars, tinted green by the algae: it’s like a rainbow galaxy surrounds them, dotted with light. They may as well be floating in a nebula cloud for all they can see of San Francisco anyway.

Vik signs a question. Their face-masks muffle whispers, and they dare not raise their voices and alert any drones. They’re not stupid. Every SF kid knows sign language for fog running, and Vik has picked it up fast since moving here from Sacramento.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 358: A Singular Event in the Fourth Dimension

Originally published in Asimov’s Science Fiction (March / April 2017)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:08 — 38.1MB)

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A Singular Event in the Fourth Dimension

by Andrea M. Pawley

Olive touched the tiny carbon fiber legs. They folded under her fingertip. The drone was dead. Its accumulator nodes held enough copper to get Olive through the next three days. Papa had always provided Olive with the inorganics she needed, but Papa hadn’t been home much since Mama stopped going to work and the second grandma arrived five days ago.

With her hand curled around the drone, Olive wiggled backward through the sinewy filament holding each living quarters trailer like a barnacle to the side of the elevator. The filament slowed Olive. So did a shortage of metals in her system. None of today’s dead drones carried the gold she needed most.

(Continue Reading…)