Pseudopod 184: The Identifier

[Bdoomed]

Pseudopod 184: The Identifier


By Mark Patrick Morehead
Read by Ben Phillips

I clear a space toward the back of my sorting table, by the auto parts bin. It’s as far back as I can reach and enough other crap is piled there that the bottle will probably go unnoticed.

My hands start sweating and claustrophobia about overwhelms me when I pick up the bottle again–it’s like my wheelchair is a big mousetrap and I’m pinned by the refrigerator with the lights on and the man of the house stomping toward me with stick.

Smoothly, and I hope nonchalantly, I move the bottle to the table and push some old rags against it. Still no one looking. Leaning back, I relax a little even though this was the easy part.

“This is the day,” I tell myself. “After all this time, this is my day.”

Two years. That’s how long I’ve been here. They caught me a couple weeks after the war started. Damn it happened fast. They just appeared, everywhere, all across the world. One day the price of oil and some brush war were the big news; the next day, the world broke and they invaded what was left. Maorg, Hoods and a half-dozen other kinds appeared out of nowhere, hitting every continent at once.




Listen to this week's Pseudopod.

[Fenrix]

Nice story. It reminded me of the Shawshank Redemption. Good reading. I then wandered out on to the 'net and found a good version of the 1812 Overture. A good one with cannons. One could almost call this an uplifting story about the resilience of the human spirit.

In before genre arguments >.>

[Shaun Lindow]

I love alien invasion stories, and this was a great one.

[Unblinking]

Wow, I really liked this one.  I kept expecting it to turn into a violent resistance against the Hoods, especially with the appearance of the gasoline, but that only served as a diversion to pilfer the wine.  I like that the aliens were so powerful yet were stupid in certain ways--they weren't aware that a box of cookies was not a working part of a wheelchair, and I liked how the disabled character actually had an advantage over the others because he's got his mechanical chair to strap things to.  I liked the mystery kept about what the Hoods looked like, and where they really came from, and all their battle thralls.  I'm assuming that humanity will be the next to become trained slave thugs.

The setting was revealed at just the right pace.  At the beginning he could've been a guy hunting at a garage sale, but the dark truth seeped in bit by bit.  And it's a testament to how well the setting was revealed that I could cheer even as he was carried off for rendering.  I don't have much hope for the future of this humanity, but he reminded all of those prisoners of their humanity, and for that he is a hero.

It did seem like a bit of a stretch of probability for the wine and the gas can, both things that are never allowed in the hands of the sorters, to pass through apparently by accident on the same day.  At first I assumed one or the other to be a test, but the Hoods seemed pretty oblivious of them this time round.

[GuildSteersman]

This was a very enjoyable take on what is usually a beaten-to-death story idea. Enough new elements -- like the hinted at alien hierarchy with technologically primitive species at the bottom -- were incorporated to make the plot convey a lot in only a few words. I feel like the author did a very nice job making a character who's basically resigned to die feel relatable and rational. I didn't question his reasoning at all when he decided to turn on the music, even though he could be pretty sure the guards would hear it and come running.

Excellent story, and thank you Pseudopod.

[goatkeeper]

This is one of my top 3 fav pseudopods of all time now.  thought it was fantastic.

[RKG]

I liked this a lot.  To me it was an uplifting story.  Yes it is dystopic, but my dominant reaction was pride for the transcendence of art and the triumph of human dignity in the face of the inevitable.

Interesting... The inspiration for the 1812 overture was the defeat of an overwhelmingly superior invading army.    By the way, the scorched earth strategy used to defeat Napoleon at Moscow lead to the situation described in Pseudopod 181.

[Scattercat]

I was pleased that the final act of rebellion was so comparatively small and, in the end, irrelevant.  I was afraid that the story was going to ask me to believe a full-scale revolution or some sort of actual "victory," and I was just not feeling it. 

The "so superior and/or alien that they end up inferior in some ways" was refreshing and well-done, as well.  The story as a whole didn't grab me, but it was good and entertaining.  Really, who can ask for much more than that?

[cdugger]

Another good one. Good pace, good reading. It kept me listening even when I thought I had it figured out.

Of course, this time I didn't. That's the mark of a good short story author, the ability to misdirect the reader.

[Listener]

I liked it.

I like how "rendering" was slipped in as a punishment... the humans are basically eating themselves (he was talking about eating rendered food, then the woman who got rendered, then Spooky saying he was going to be rendered). Ick.

[eytanz]

This was a great story, a wonderful tale of humanity shining through despair and hopelessness. I was taken in completely by the narration and quite affected by the ending.

Later, though, I had a few nitpicky thoughts - the primary one being "why was the wheelchaired guy even there?" I mean, the aliens had a planet of several billion to choose their few dozen slaves from. Why choose a guy sitting on a piece of technology they do not understand? It couldn't be because he would be less of a threat because: A - it was clear no-one was a real threat to them, and B - because the other slaves were not disabled. If the aliens were killing people left and right except a few they choose as slaves, the wheelchair guy seems like a very odd choice for them. The second nitpick was already brought up above - it was very, very lucky for the bottle of wine + the gasoline to end up in the same shipment. And besides, it seemed like the distraction plan relied on some sort of ignitable fuel becoming available, but the narrator had said it almost never does, and when it does it could be a trap. There was something of a McGuiverness to the whole thing - he happened to have pre-prepared the exact things he needed to take the maximum advantage of the situation exactly as it happened, even though he had no way to forsee it.

Still, the fact that these thoughts hit me several hours after listening to the story (and indeed, the fact that I was thinking about it several hours after listening), rather than during the story, is a testament to how well crafted it is.

[J_Sch_1104]

The impression made on the rest of the people at the end of the story reminded me of Harrison Bergeron.

[Millenium_King]

I don't know, I found this one pretty snore-worthy.  It reminded me of an Outer Limits Episode I've seen or maybe something out of Star Trek or Babylon 5 (you know, before the Enterprise shows up to rescue everyone).

I thought the aliens were creative, but not terribly original (I mean, they fit right into fantasy archetypes: Orcs/Maurg, Wizards/Hoods).  I was most dissappointed by how human-like they looked although I was pleased with their relatively inhuman thought process.

Liked the way he gave them all nicknames.  Good detail.  True to life to what real captives do.

Didn't like how it basically wasn't horror.  Wouldn't this have been better on Escape Pod or something?

[mjc34]

i liked the horror of their deeds to view better. Personally kept waiting for a similar ending, I mean the guy had a rag to stuff in the wine bottle and gasoline. Why not try and make a Molotov cockatail and take a few out? Ending was too Shawshank for me.