Author Topic: EP710: Requiem Without Sound  (Read 1324 times)

divs

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on: December 17, 2019, 09:53:37 PM
Escape Pod 710: Requiem Without Sound

Author: Izzy Wasserstein
Narrator: Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali
Host: Alasdair Stuart
Audio Producer: Summer Brooks

Escape Pod 710: Requiem Without Sound is an Escape Pod original.

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Introit
Evie is born into cold and silence. They know this, though they have only now gained consciousness, because their sensors report it. The memory of the station’s computer, which now forms part of Evie’s brain, tells them that their environment is very wrong. There should be movement. Sound. Life.

Interior scans of the station reveal the cause. A chunk of rock, 9 cm in diameter, has punctured the station’s control room. Chavez was in her chair when the debris broke through, crushing her head. There was no time for her to seek the safety of the living compartment, no time for decompression or cold to kill her.

Evie has been programed with a full suite of emotions, including empathy, and feels that a quick death was a small mercy.

Chavez died before Evie’s mind had finished growing on the neural-lattice, before they became conscious.

A rigorous technician, Chavez left notes in Evie’s code, though there was no one to read it besides Chavez, and now Evie themself. The annotations are clear: she was growing Evie because she was lonely. Evie considered one particular notation at length: I’m tired of singing to myself.




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CryptoMe

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Reply #1 on: February 27, 2020, 04:20:43 PM
I enjoyed the themes of loneliness in this story, and the exploration of what it means to be a person, even if one is made of machinery. But, I did not understand the ending. Anyone?