Welcome to meet us pod episode four. I'm your host D Mitas.
listenership is picking up now. I love reading all the feedback
we're receiving from feedback at meatus pod.com. We've got two
stories for you this episode. The first the lady electric
comes to us from Gary B Phillips. Gary is a writer and
software developer in Arizona. He lives with his wife, three
children, three cats, two chickens, and one possibly
insane puppy. He vows not to shave his beard until his novel
is done. Or he becomes a powerful wizard, whichever comes
first. His work has appeared in daily science fiction, flash
fiction online. The A is for Apocalypse anthology and a
variety of other places he tweets at at Gary B. Phillips.
The story is narrated for us by new Rasputin. New Rasputin is a
rugged handsome lumberjack who lives on top of the highest
mountain Washington State in a log cabin with nothing but a
computer and a microphone. He's currently working on developing
his voice acting skills and web design talents. Check out his
work at New rasputin.com Without further ado, our first story,
the lady electric by Gary B. Phillips.
There was a hole in the fabric of your favorite dress, and the
light seemed to bend around it. Light always favored you,
softening or illuminating to give you an ethereal beauty at
all times. I didn't say anything new about the hole. And you know
angry you would be I knew what could happen as your anger got
the best of you played in fear it. I wanted to keep you safe.
Halfway through dinner you saw the hole in your face flush that
brilliant pure white. The other patrons took notice. How could
they not? Children pointed at you, gazing in wonder the black
dots that burst around you and sucked in the light. The
restaurant emptied and the police came in their guns drawn
shouting at you to get down. A few of them got too close and
winked out of existence. Though I'm not sure anyone noticed in
the confusion. I love you. I shouted in the midst of the
chaos. Bullets in late in the sound of the earth coming apart
at the seams. I love you too. You said it seemed to calm you
and then they were upon you. They led you away in handcuffs.
Worried about the incident spread quickly. The papers ran
rife with speculation. The names of the missing cops were
released in the city held a candlelight vigil in their
honor. The mayor pleaded with the public to come forward with
any information they had about the freak accident or mysterious
woman. They didn't know how to deal with you. So they kept you
in solitary for two weeks. They tried to visit you but they
turned me away every time. She's a danger to herself and others
they said a deal was made and they transferred you to a
laboratory outside the city. A man named Edison had taken a
keen interest in you. I took a train to New Jersey and held a
carriage to Menlo Park. His lab looked less like a place of
research and more like an oversized residence. Thomas
Edison stood on his porch, puffing a cigar and looking up
to the heavens. I let myself in through a white picket fence.
Strange night, he said. I looked up to the stars and only saw a
few twinkling lights if a veil had been placed over the sky.
Indeed, are you Mr. Edison? I asked. He nodded and shook my
hand. He asked Mr. Atwood and with the times. I nodded. And he
invited me in. When I first contacted him, I had lied and
told him I was a reporter. You know, I'm not a liar, so I'd
even surprised myself. But if it meant getting to see you again.
It was worth it. His lab was bright, lit by a queer light
that made my eyes water. He introduced me to his assistant
and showed me around the lab. This is really special, I said,
but this is all yesterday's news. I have something new, he
said, drying closer to me and speaking with a hushed fervor.
I'd never seen anything like it. Would you like to see? I nodded,
following him downstairs and through the locked doors. We
stopped in an enormous weight room, heavy with the sound of
machinery. There she is. He said. I scarcely recognized you.
Your hair was gone, replaced with tubes and wires that ran to
strange devices. I call her lady electric he said Mark my words
she will change the world. You had already changed mine. Your
eyes were milky, rolled back into your head. But you stirred
when I came close. I am not of this place. He said. I was not
supposed to but I met you. Your voice trailed off. I saw a spark
of recognition a light your eyes and then they were useless
again. I left crestfallen. But he was right. You change the
world. The newspapers hailed Edison as a genius. They covered
up the real story, of course, printing lies that he had found
you in an alley begging for food. They wrote of the quaint
invention he had been working on until he met you. Within a year,
every major city used you. They took their fill of you. The lady
that lit up the night sky, replacing the stars in the moon.
I met with Mr. Edison often under the false pretense that I
was writing articles of him and you
could not keep up the charade, though. I love her. I told him
over coffee. His gaze did not meet mine. He was fixated on his
cup of coffee. His hair had thinned and turned white since
our first meeting. He was a far cry from the young men I had met
a year prior. He looked up at me, as do I, he said. You're not
surprised that I know her. Then I asked. The diner was quiet,
save for the faint clink of silverware and murmured
conversation. The silence was heavy between us. She speaks of
you often. He said. I knew I couldn't find him on the grounds
of morality. I had to appeal to his heart. Does she love you? I
asked him. I'm thinking of leaving Mina, he said. Then he
paid the bill and left. He did not contact me again. And I was
no longer permitted in his laboratory. I took up arms
against him. Now with a gun or sword but with words, I told the
world your story that you are not a machine to be used up. But
a woman a girl. Others took up the cause condemning Edison
calling him a monster. But they were hypocrites because they
cursed him under your light. You wavered in your 10th year of
captivity. Your light blazed one minute and was gone the next I
stepped outside to see the city darkened and yet still
illuminated. The stars shown in the sky brighter than I had ever
remembered seeing such a vast array of radiant light above us
and wondered why we needed anything but then for light
after gazing at the stars that night. I knew that you were
gone. Before I read it in the papers. Are you with the stars
start with insurance who bravely
and ever did trust Edison. I think it's his eyebrows. Have
you seen those things? It's like fuzzy caterpillar of reach I use
our second story off campus housing by Holly Schofield was
originally published in at the Canadian science fiction review
July 2013, and is copyrighted Holly Schofield, whose work has
appeared in many publications including Lightspeed across
genres and Deseret. She travels through time at the rate of one
second per second, oscillating between the alternate realities
of a prairie farmhouse and her writing Kevin on the West Coast.
For more of her work, see Holly scofield.wordpress.com, which is
linked in the show notes. I'll be narrating the story for you.
I hope you enjoy off campus housing by Holly Schofield. I
pulled over into the shoulder of highway 16 and opened my door
for the hitchhiker with sweat from the summer heat ran down
his face as he pulled the door closed. His grubby jeans were
shoved carelessly into rubber boots that wreaked of manure.
Just the sort of person I wanted. I just need to get to
township road to five five got my combine in the field, hoping
to get in a full day's harvest. He said After thanking me and
settling into the RIP passenger seat. I put the old Impala and
gear and pulled back onto the highway will happy to give you a
ride. You're probably the only verbal interaction I'm going to
get today. I said, aiming for simultaneously off the cuff and
nerdy. A stranger took off his Vita feed cap and scratched his
forehead with a farmer's tan ended. name's Rick, pleased to
meet you He was in his 30s crinkles beginning to form
around his eyes, his wind, red and skin contrasting with the
short blonde hair and days stubble the perfect stereotype
of a Saskatchewan farmer. I kept my doubts to myself. I saw him
take in my ponytail, beard stubble jeans and Nietzche
tattoo. I may have somewhat overshot typical grad student. I
told him I was a South American exchange student doing my
sociology thesis on Ukrainian descendants in Canada, on my way
to Regina to see my friend. Some of it was even true. He didn't
seem bothered by my casual questions about religion, diet,
farming equipment, tech level and relationships. He gave very
typical answers. Even when we discussed wheat strains he
showed just the right amount of knowledge. He spelled out his
surname and I scribbled it down as I drove, making sure to get
the correct number of wise. We shared a chuckle over his major
source of income, government crop subsidies or for good for a
laugh and farming communities everywhere I think we turned in
unison as a red tailed hawk did a dive and cover into a wind
scoured grass beside the highway. Poor mouse I said,
testing him. Well aimed, he replied, as suited a farmer who
don't daily with minor deaths. He might have shuttered though,
my attention was diverted as a truck pass by us. The first
vehicle in over an hour. township to phi phi was a narrow
gravel road lined with Lombardi poplars. Her dust plume hung
behind us like a contrail. Just to click down the road. He said,
hope you don't mind. Thanks so much, Rick said, closing the
corridor with just the right amount of effort and use of
musculature and did a three point turn as Rick walked over
to the huge green John Deere combine each wheel the height of
a man, the uncut hay gleamed in the field behind he climbed up
the ladder into the driver's seat and gave me a See you later
kind of wave and began some sort of maintenance routine. I parked
the car behind the next slight rise. The poplars tall and dense
with the summer's growth made good camouflage. I unfolded my
nine foot frame from its human size compression and flex my
secondary ears. Man that felt good. I looked between the
poplar silent and swift, Rick had gotten down from the Combine
was fiddling with the wheel hub. As the hub opened into an
airlock I pumped my arm and triumph just like a human does.
Damn, do I spot them or 1/4 one today. Rick entered and
continued on through the interlock, I got my glimpse of a
class five spaceship dashboard before he closed it behind him.
A Gleeson from out Andromeda way without a doubt. His only
mistake had been hitching a ride without a farmhouse inside. The
Impala seat had grown warm in the sun. I recompressed myself
and adjusted my internal thermostat. As I put the car
into first and headed back for another tour of the highway, I
gave a sigh of satisfaction. Just a few more hitchhikers, I'd
have enough data from my thesis. The University of galactic
sociology Vega campus had already approved my topic, niche
influx of aliens, a study of the acculturation patterns and
coping skills of non Terran crop researchers in rural Canada.
Tara.
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