Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Book Club, Club, book Club, book Club, book Club.
Speaker 3: It's the book club. It's the Cool Zone Media book Club.
Speaker 3: I'm your host, fire, your killjoy, and with me today
Speaker 3: is my guest fellow. It could well, I'm not in
Speaker 3: it could happen here post but this is on that
Speaker 3: could happen here, bead sure is, and that's care. Hello.
Speaker 3: I read books amazing. I honestly listen to audiobooks at
Speaker 3: this point. Honestly, oh I do.
Speaker 2: I can't. I can't retain the information with an audio.
Speaker 2: But at least most of the books I read are
Speaker 2: just like nonfiction. I haven't I haven't read a novel
Speaker 2: in years, which I kind of feel bad about. But
Speaker 2: my job, Warrence, I read just a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: like really upsetting nonfiction, and like I can't like take
Speaker 2: notes the same way if I'm listening to an audiobook,
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Oh no, that's that's that's true for me. I forget that.
Speaker 3: My day job is reading history books for podcasts the media.
Speaker 3: Those I read, yeah in print, I actually really like
Speaker 3: reading the physical book while pacing.
Speaker 2: But oh yeah, me too. Yeah, I love pacing.
Speaker 3: It's so good. Maybe you're pacing while you're listening to this,
Speaker 3: dear listener, cools On Media book Club is every Sunday
Speaker 3: and I read you stories and this week's story is
Speaker 3: by a friend of mine, Tobias s Bukel. I'm sort
Speaker 3: of a former teacher of mine who I think is
Speaker 3: really cool. I met Tobias when he was my teacher
Speaker 3: at the Clarion West Writers Workshop, and I would just
Speaker 3: like to shout out that aspiring writers. There's a six
Speaker 3: week workshop called Clarion West. There's another one called Clarion
Speaker 3: I went to Clarion West, so I have a little
Speaker 3: bit of bias towards it. And it sounds like a
Speaker 3: reality TV show, But it's not like I spent six
Speaker 3: weeks in a sorority house with eighteen strangers in Seattle
Speaker 3: and learned science fiction writing from amazing authors, with a
Speaker 3: different author every week comes in to teach us. That
Speaker 3: sounds cool, Yeah, it was. It's a really good thing
Speaker 3: for people who are like just at the part of
Speaker 3: writing where you're just starting to be good enough, but
Speaker 3: you're not consistently good enough yet, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: And it really I'm not a formal education person. I
Speaker 3: don't have any degrees I've been thinking about framing my
Speaker 3: high school diploma to put behind me in Zoom calls
Speaker 3: as a joke.
Speaker 2: That be funny, that'd be good.
Speaker 3: But Clarion West Workshop type things is very practical, and
Speaker 3: Toby is a really good teacher. Toby's bio before we
Speaker 3: get to the story. Tobias S. Bukel is a New
Speaker 3: York Times bestselling author and World Fantasy Award winner. Born
Speaker 3: in the Caribbean, he grew up in Granada and spent
Speaker 3: time in the British and US Virgin Islands, which influence
Speaker 3: much of his work. His novels and almost one hundred
Speaker 3: stories have been translated into twenty languages. His work has
Speaker 3: been nominated for awards like the Hugo Nebula World Fantasy
Speaker 3: and the Astounding Award for Best News Science Fiction Author.
Speaker 3: He currently lives in Bluffton, Ohio, with his wife and
Speaker 3: two daughters, where he teaches creative writing at Bluffton University.
Speaker 3: He's online at Tobias Buckell dot com. That's b u
Speaker 3: c k e l L and dispelled Tobias. I guess
Speaker 3: I'll just read the whole thing. T O b I
Speaker 3: A S b U c k e L l dot
Speaker 3: com and is also an instructor at the Stone Coast
Speaker 3: MFA and Creative Writing Program and also sometimes he teaches
Speaker 3: Clarion West. They should find a year there you go.
Speaker 2: I've been looking at workshops, but been working at clown
Speaker 2: clowning workshops because there's really because there's no good clown
Speaker 2: schools on the East Coast except for in New York.
Speaker 2: And I've never been to New York. So now looking
Speaker 2: for like regional clown workshops because all the clown schools
Speaker 2: are in the elitist LA and New York theater scenes.
Speaker 3: It's no good, tragic. It's funny. When I when I
Speaker 3: first joined the anarchy scene, there was a lot of
Speaker 3: like radical clowns, and so there was yeah, clown workshops.
Speaker 3: But I hear that gen Z is like obsessed with clowns,
Speaker 3: and all my friends are complaining that, like the dating
Speaker 3: apps are full of like sexy clowns.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, clowns. Clowns are back in a big way,
Speaker 2: but we don't have like the the training to support it.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of like clown aesthetics, but not much
Speaker 2: about actual clowning. So hope, hopefully they'll be like a
Speaker 2: clown renaissance, a clownissance, if you will, in the next
Speaker 2: five years, as more of the Gen Z clowns kind
Speaker 2: of get educated and are able to start providing their
Speaker 2: own kind of education to the up and coming Gen
Speaker 2: Alpha clowns or whatever.
Speaker 3: Would this be at a clnaissance clownissance festival?
Speaker 2: I mean I have I have gone as a jester
Speaker 2: to multiple renfairs. I've gone with you to a runfair before.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Okay, well that has nothing to do with today's story.
Speaker 3: But it's a fun story, and that's why I picked it.
Speaker 3: We've been doing a lot of very serious stories, which
Speaker 3: are also very good, but I've kind of wanted to
Speaker 3: do something a little bit more lighthearted to make fun
Speaker 3: of rich people.
Speaker 2: Oh Evergreen, Yeah, Evergreen fun time, I know.
Speaker 3: And it's actually funny because it's a very classic. It's
Speaker 3: a very classic sci fi story in so many ways,
Speaker 3: even though it's modern, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: This story is called the Plastic People. Raya found the
Speaker 3: feral child on the edge of the garbage park on
Speaker 3: the last day of the group's vacation. Garrison passed out
Speaker 3: from drinking the better part of a bottle of one
Speaker 3: hundred year old is Ley Scotch had dropped a cigar
Speaker 3: onto the edge of the canvas tent and set it
Speaker 3: all on fire. I absolutely picked you for the guest
Speaker 3: aha of this character.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I usually only get Garrison Keeler because there's not
Speaker 2: very many of us out there.
Speaker 3: Oh, I don't know who Garrison Keiler is.
Speaker 2: I don't know either, but it's the one other person
Speaker 2: named Garrison in the world.
Speaker 3: Okay, that well, now you know that there's a future Garrison,
Speaker 3: So damn it, Garrison, Agagnier shouted, as personal air quality
Speaker 3: alarms blared. You and your fucking retro addictions. There'd been
Speaker 3: scrambling and shouting among the five old friends as they
Speaker 3: tumbled out onto the fetid, methane rich air outside. Go easy,
Speaker 3: It isn't something he can do. Back upstairs, Susie stumbled
Speaker 3: out of her own tent with a fire extinguisher. Everyone
Speaker 3: coughed and spat as she blew the fire out in
Speaker 3: a cloud of chemical powder. Don't defend him, Agunier snapped.
Speaker 3: Ten years, Garrison shouted, clutching the almost empty bottle triumphantly.
Speaker 3: His heavy boots crunched in the ground, knocking styrofoam chunks
Speaker 3: into the air, and I still love you all. That's
Speaker 3: the last bottle, Agugnie anger, suddenly as banked as the
Speaker 3: tent fire on this world, Garrison said, Ever, the last
Speaker 3: bottle of Islae anyone will ever have, Agugnie said, and
Speaker 3: snatched it from Garrison. Raya listened to the bickering with
Speaker 3: half an ear as the orange glow of the fire
Speaker 3: faded away. As she'd been sure she had seen something
Speaker 3: skiter past the shadows on the edge of camp. Something's
Speaker 3: over there, Raya whispered to Susy by the fridge. London
Speaker 3: had been listening to them. She pointed in the direction.
Speaker 3: Raya indicated and snapped her fingers. The night lit up
Speaker 3: and two drones dropped out of the air. Was using
Speaker 3: them for dance lights, London muttered, but trash rattled and
Speaker 3: slid down the pile. As the intruder scuttled away from
Speaker 3: the stunningly bright light. Raya shielded her eyes and tried
Speaker 3: to follow along. As the drones ducked and weaved around
Speaker 3: the compacted hills of old earth debris cornered it, London
Speaker 3: said triumphantly. Is a bear? Garrison asked, blearily. It's a
Speaker 3: bear right there. Are no bears, idiot, Susie said, they're extinct.
Speaker 3: London said. Raya clambered one of the unsteady trasholes they'd
Speaker 3: parked the tents between. I see it, she said. It
Speaker 3: was a little boy, streaked in grease and mud, ribs,
Speaker 3: visible as the drone lights played over him. His wide,
Speaker 3: dark eyes stared fearfully at her as he tried to
Speaker 3: hide behind a cracked porcelain tub. Oh my, London said,
Speaker 3: clamberin over behind Raya. The poor little thing. Does he
Speaker 3: live here? Susie asked, disgusted, how we just spent three days.
Speaker 3: Garrison said it's not that bad, idiot, Susie said, it's
Speaker 3: a shithole. It's miles and miles of trash. It reeks
Speaker 3: everywhere I step. There's old world crap. I agree, while
Speaker 3: it was fun to see what the old world was like.
Speaker 3: Agougnie threw the last bottle of his lay off into
Speaker 3: the dark. It shattered against something invisible out there. I
Speaker 3: think maybe it's time to call it. Let's go home.
Speaker 3: I'm tired of the gravity. Susie agreed. It's oppressive. We
Speaker 3: can't leave the child here in the trash. Raya protested,
Speaker 3: Garrison groaned, Oh, come on, that's what it's like down here.
Speaker 3: You know this. They'd flown down into the heart of
Speaker 3: the dump for their mini reunion. Partying in an exotic
Speaker 3: location would make an incredible story. All the termites down
Speaker 3: here can survive just fine without our help. They love
Speaker 3: living in places like this, Susie said, don't think you're
Speaker 3: doing it any favors. Living here must be a hell.
Speaker 3: It's a hell they chose to make, Garrison said, this
Speaker 3: is all theirs. They made it. They knew how to
Speaker 3: live in it. Raya clambered her way over rusted out
Speaker 3: heaps and winced when something jabbed through her boots into
Speaker 3: her skin. She'd had all our shots, though, a prerequisite
Speaker 3: to coming down. Hey there, she said softly to the
Speaker 3: scared child. His hair was matted and clumped. He was
Speaker 3: so covered and muck that he almost blended into the night.
Speaker 3: She held out a candy bar in her right hand.
Speaker 3: The child snatched it from her, shredding the plastic wrapping
Speaker 3: as he ripped into it with jagged teeth. What's your name?
Speaker 3: The child just stared at her. Raya held out a hand.
Speaker 3: Would you like to come with us? He scuttled back
Speaker 3: from her and right into a Guigne's arms. He circled
Speaker 3: around and snuck up from behind. The child wailed and screamed,
Speaker 3: but he was a small creature, and Agugnia tucked him
Speaker 3: under an armpit with a quick smile. Shall we go?
Speaker 3: Everyone agreed that it was time to end the party,
Speaker 3: and with Reya placated, the reunion trickled back into the
Speaker 3: shuttle for the trip home. Susy strapped into the pilot's
Speaker 3: seat and activated a return sequence. The main engines lit
Speaker 3: up and scattered all their camping equipment off to mingle
Speaker 3: with the rest of the trash park as a silvered
Speaker 3: ship thundered into the sky, with the fair old child
Speaker 3: screaming all the way up to orbit. Raya tried to
Speaker 3: give him a chocolate bar, but he ate the wrapper
Speaker 3: and bar pointed teeth, ripping into the whole package, then
Speaker 3: puked it up all over the cabin. You're cleaning that up,
Speaker 3: Susi shouted, as Reya tried not to throw up herself.
Speaker 3: And if you want candy bars, we were sponsored by candy,
Speaker 3: sponsored by Big Candy. That's right, we got we got
Speaker 3: the twenty twenty three Wonka sponsorship. So line up outside
Speaker 3: every every every fifth, every fifth bar gets you one
Speaker 3: ticket to book Club in your in your ears though
Speaker 3: you have you still you still have to plug in
Speaker 3: through the headphones. But you'll be allowed to listen to
Speaker 3: book Club. Yeah. So yeah, as long as you buy
Speaker 3: enough candy bars, that's right, offer them to random children.
Speaker 3: And here's those ads, and we're back scrubbing the mangy child.
Speaker 3: Clean took five I have domestic assistance an hour. It
Speaker 3: fought free of the butler's first attempt, and he'd called
Speaker 3: in the chef and three clean team professionals to get
Speaker 3: the kid into the tub. They washed the dogs in
Speaker 3: Mighty tim Gonzo, and Ophelia, the three poodles, usually the
Speaker 3: ones unlucky enough to get hauled into the plastic tub
Speaker 3: in the middle of the mudroom, off by the kitchens.
Speaker 3: Barkden ran around in the middle of all the chaos,
Speaker 3: making the most of the fun. He's a wiry one,
Speaker 3: the butler observed. Stronger than you'd think, it's all that
Speaker 3: full gravity, the chef said, drying herself off. Rayo watched
Speaker 3: the chaos unfold on a tablet, patching into the house
Speaker 3: video feed while enjoying a calming soak and the marble
Speaker 3: trimmed upstairs bathroom attached to her unit as she scrubbed
Speaker 3: away the stink of the old world and half digested
Speaker 3: candy bar. The gold leafed Florida ceiling windows in front
Speaker 3: of the bathtub framed the stars beyond, a stunning view
Speaker 3: when she stopped to think about it. Mostly she found
Speaker 3: that it kept entrancing her personal assistant, so Ria usually
Speaker 3: kept the window darkened. On one of the other orbital cities,
Speaker 3: Raya spent the night with a man who had his
Speaker 3: whole bathroom floor transparent. You could look down on the
Speaker 3: mother planet slowly passing by underneath every minute while taking
Speaker 3: a shit. Her view won for class. His was the
Speaker 3: one everyone talked about at the party. Raya stood up
Speaker 3: and toweled herself off handy. Her pa had a selection
Speaker 3: of evening gowns waiting in her room. The one with
Speaker 3: microblades that could produce enough lift to waft around her
Speaker 3: legs at a pre programmed height got the nod. Then
Speaker 3: it was off down the hall to mother's dining room,
Speaker 3: where she was fussing over the layout. Why is there
Speaker 3: an extra seating alas demanded, hovering over the table as
Speaker 3: a chef directed the setup. It's for the child, we found,
Speaker 3: Raya explained. Her mother looked utterly perplexed, so Raya showed
Speaker 3: her a picture of the sight and one of the
Speaker 3: child screaming as they rocketed back up to orbit. It's
Speaker 3: a farll, Raya said, living in the garbage dump. We
Speaker 3: went to the dump. Alaise looked horrified. You went down,
Speaker 3: Susie piloted it. It's safe. How much did that cost?
Speaker 3: Elise's horror had turned into a vaguely scandalized expression. Raya
Speaker 3: had to think about that a second. It was Susie,
Speaker 3: you know her father owns the shipping. Recognition flickered across
Speaker 3: Eliza's face. That's Susie exactly. Most of the founding families
Speaker 3: knew each other well enough by first name, but mother
Speaker 3: always struggled with the names of Raya's friends and which
Speaker 3: kid matched to which parents. They were just a blur
Speaker 3: of little people in and out of the house to her.
Speaker 3: Of course, the house staff knew Rhea's cohort by name.
Speaker 3: They'd served them enough dinners and requests over the years.
Speaker 3: Bring the child in, Raya ordered, and then to her mother.
Speaker 3: You wouldn't believe the squalor we found the poor thing in. Well,
Speaker 3: it is the old world, Elise said. There's a reason
Speaker 3: we left. Look at what they do to it. It's
Speaker 3: barely inhabitable. It's hardly a child's fault. It was born
Speaker 3: to it. I've been saying for years we should just
Speaker 3: put birth control and all the medicine we shipped down
Speaker 3: there from the factories. Don't be so ghost. Rahea rolled
Speaker 3: her eyes. You always tried to rescue strays. Remember that
Speaker 3: little kitten you found over by the garment factory mittens.
Speaker 3: Raya clenched her jawl. You had it put down. I
Speaker 3: told you, sweetie. The cats have gotten out of hand
Speaker 3: in the green ways. They're killing everything and throwing the
Speaker 3: ecology nets off kilter. We keep having to poll species
Speaker 3: out of storage to repopulate the gardens. Oh it's here.
Speaker 3: The little boy stood at the servants doorway, two domestic
Speaker 3: assistants behind him. With hands on his shoulder. They cleaned
Speaker 3: all the dirt off of him. He was pale, almost
Speaker 3: sickly so and so skinny that his shirt and trousers
Speaker 3: flopped baggly around him. One of the domestic assistants had
Speaker 3: brushed out as long, stringy hair and braided it. Oh
Speaker 3: look at how nicely we've we cleaned him up, Raya said,
Speaker 3: you're supposed to return a baby bird to the nest.
Speaker 3: Alise whispered to Raya as she sat down. Doesn't this
Speaker 3: Pharrell have parents? Raya caught her breath. She hadn't thought
Speaker 3: about parents. She's just seen a near starving child enacted
Speaker 3: not good ones if he was living in a dump.
Speaker 3: It stays in your quarters, Alise huffed. I don't want
Speaker 3: it anywhere near my rembrands or the silver, and never
Speaker 3: ever in my rooms. Come on, little one, Raya waved
Speaker 3: at the child, come sit with us, let's eat. He
Speaker 3: approached poor thing so tentatively, much like the kitten Elise mentioned,
Speaker 3: nervous about trusting the outstretched hand, unlike mittens. The child
Speaker 3: pulled out a chair and sat down as instructed. Does
Speaker 3: it speak, Elise asked the domestic assistance. It screams, miss Raya.
Speaker 3: Raya patted the child's hand and he flinched. Don't be
Speaker 3: like that, Raya said, we rescued you. Everything's going to
Speaker 3: be better now, the child whimpered. Raya looked out over
Speaker 3: the first course being set out and frowned. Let's get
Speaker 3: you something so magical to'll cheer you right up, something
Speaker 3: you never would have experienced in that nasty dump. Ice cream,
Speaker 3: Now that was the ticket. Raya ordered it, delivered with
Speaker 3: chocolate sauce drizzled on the top. There we are, she said,
Speaker 3: pushing the bowl over. Try this. The child bared teeth.
Speaker 3: Good God, they're filed to a point. Alisee shuddered. Raya
Speaker 3: scooped a spoonful of ice cream and held it up.
Speaker 3: Try it. She took a chilly bite and smiled at him.
Speaker 3: He nibbled at the spoon when she moved it back over.
Speaker 3: Persuaded by her enjoyment, he shuddered as his tongue hit cold, smiled,
Speaker 3: then ate the rest of the bite. Soon he had
Speaker 3: his face in the bowl, licking it clean. That's a boy,
Speaker 3: Raya said. He sampled more food, but right when a
Speaker 3: Lee's and ray started on their Kobe beef, he clutched
Speaker 3: his stomach and looked at them with an almost comical
Speaker 3: confused look, and then threw up all over the dinner table.
Speaker 3: Alie stood up, threw her napkin down at the mess,
Speaker 3: and declared, I'm going to visit Lars at Lunar North.
Speaker 3: Call me when you come to your senses. The domestic
Speaker 3: assistant swooped in to clean up the mess and the boy. Raya,
Speaker 3: in a funk, retired to a room to brood over
Speaker 3: what had gone wrong. She had started this with the
Speaker 3: best of intentions, but it wasn't going to plan now.
Speaker 3: Her mother had her judgy face on. The domestic assistants
Speaker 3: looked annoyed, and she could hear the child screaming and
Speaker 3: fussing away from somewhere deeper inside the family estate. Hell,
Speaker 3: she didn't even know the child's name. One of the
Speaker 3: engineering staff came back in with the boy. We weren't
Speaker 3: sure where you wanted him to stay. Before Raya could
Speaker 3: say anything, the child ran toward the window at the
Speaker 3: back of the living room. Earth, he said, pressing against
Speaker 3: the thick glass, his large brown eyes filled with tears.
Speaker 3: He can speak, Raya said, Thank goodness. She'd started to
Speaker 3: worry that maybe the pharaohs back down on the planet
Speaker 3: had started to lose the capacity to speak, but that
Speaker 3: didn't make any sense, as they all purchased medicines, weapons,
Speaker 3: and other supplies for many of the family businesses that
Speaker 3: still did trade below them. She assumed that you had
Speaker 3: to be able to speak to do that Earth, the
Speaker 3: child said, back to that nasty dump, Raya shook her head.
Speaker 3: Look around you, look at everything I can give you.
Speaker 3: I rescued you. The wealthy had left Earth long ago,
Speaker 3: moved manufacturing to orbit, moved all their wealth up, even
Speaker 3: scraped off all the good soil so they could grow
Speaker 3: whatever they wanted an orbit. Some people felt they had
Speaker 3: abandoned Earth or turned their backs on its suffering that
Speaker 3: only the very rich could afford to get to orbit,
Speaker 3: and that they'd walked away from their responsibility to be stewards.
Speaker 3: It was the ancestors of the wealthy who had done
Speaker 3: so much damage on their way to being rich. Ray's family.
Speaker 3: It was mainly held that if one really wanted to
Speaker 3: work hard enough, anyone could get into space. Those left
Speaker 3: behind had simply not applied themselves. This child's ancestors had
Speaker 3: not applied themselves, but Raya had rescued it. The least
Speaker 3: the child could do was show some gratitude. Instead, he
Speaker 3: wiped snop from his nose at and sniffed at the
Speaker 3: window until Raya's patience broke. The only word the child
Speaker 3: seemed to know was Earth. She left the estate for
Speaker 3: a walk to clear her mind and meet up with
Speaker 3: a Gugne for some actual conversation. And if you want
Speaker 3: your golden ticket Garrison to Space, every fifth candy bar.
Speaker 2: Every fifth candy bar, new new Musk branded Wonking candy
Speaker 2: bar is coming sued.
Speaker 3: That's right, I'll.
Speaker 2: Get get you a free a free trip to Bars
Speaker 2: one way one way ticket though.
Speaker 3: God, wouldn't it be great if I'm I'm all in
Speaker 3: favor of Elon Musk personally attempting to get to Mars
Speaker 3: with all the richest people in the world.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, No, I'm all for one way tickets
Speaker 2: to Mars.
Speaker 3: Oh, I don't think they'll make it. Oh really well yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean I'm not big into gambling, but I would
Speaker 3: be so happy either way. Then I would absolutely gamble
Speaker 3: on this.
Speaker 2: No matter what happens, everyone wins.
Speaker 3: It's yeah. I think the best would be is if
Speaker 3: they like set up really nice stuff on Mars and
Speaker 3: then die and then when you know, people try and
Speaker 3: go there, there's like nice stuff anyway.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be cool, But I think you're putting
Speaker 2: little too much faith in their infrastructurability. Yeah, that's build
Speaker 2: set up nice stuff on Mars in the first place.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've seen how badly their cars are made. I
Speaker 3: love that we're supposed to be impressed by their space rockets,
Speaker 3: as if, like before I was born, we hadn't put
Speaker 3: a human onto the Moon by way of yeah math
Speaker 3: done by women with notebooks.
Speaker 2: No, I mean we had like wizards in the Nevada Desert,
Speaker 2: like launching rockets with like Crowley's space journals in like
Speaker 2: the nineteen forties, which led to the space program. And
Speaker 2: these fuckers can't manage to get something up into orbit consistently. Yeah,
Speaker 2: pretty pretty, pretty funny stuff. Yeah, because they're all fucking
Speaker 2: grifting each other anyway, what's not a grift? Are actually
Speaker 2: a lot of these ads are probably these ads? Yeah,
Speaker 2: here they are, and we're back into the economic system
Speaker 2: that we all live in.
Speaker 3: Here's the story. Airwon orbitals carefully landscaped gardens, curved up
Speaker 3: until they met the ceiling, a transparent metal that let
Speaker 3: you look in toward the center of the orbital where
Speaker 3: the heavy infrastructure and docks all clustered around a needle
Speaker 3: shaped hub. The ring shape of the orbital let its spin,
Speaker 3: and the insides of the hoop dripped with greenery that
Speaker 3: teams of biota specialists worked overtime to keep in balance,
Speaker 3: getting a forest to stay alive against cosmic rays, occasional
Speaker 3: pressure losses from punctures, and the gyrations of a life
Speaker 3: support system closed in so tight that problems cascaded around
Speaker 3: in dizzying complexities. Reya had studied systems management for a
Speaker 3: whole agonizing three months, idly toy in with the idea
Speaker 3: of becoming part of the ecosystem management team on one
Speaker 3: of the orbitals, but five minutes near a sewer processing
Speaker 3: plant deep in the bowels of Erewhon had her change
Speaker 3: her mind. She joined her father's team of orbital arbitrage specialists,
Speaker 3: flipping futures contracts based on complicated home and transfers and
Speaker 3: cargo manifests through cis lunar space, a much more dependable
Speaker 3: income stream, not that she needed much. The family endowment
Speaker 3: created back when her great grandfather lived on Earth and
Speaker 3: decided to start building orbitals as a lark with the
Speaker 3: extra billions lying around would always take care of her.
Speaker 3: You had to do something or life became awfully boring.
Speaker 3: Quickly enough, Agugner met her in the scent garden, running
Speaker 3: his hands over lilacs and breathing them in with a smile.
Speaker 3: Hungover or still drunk, Hi, hello, t you, Reyes said,
Speaker 3: stopping by a striking clump of mini cedar trees. No,
Speaker 3: I'm high, Agunya took a deep breath. Come on, Agugne,
Speaker 3: really after a treat like the one we had. Agugne
Speaker 3: smiled and joined her by the cedars. Just a small buzz,
Speaker 3: take the edge off. Susie's still mad at you. Susie
Speaker 3: wouldn't speak or turn messages right now. She'll get over
Speaker 3: it in a week. That little creature threw up everywhere.
Speaker 3: Agunya picked up a stick and scratched at it. The
Speaker 3: smell of cedar filled the air between them. Then I
Speaker 3: threw up. It was a horror movie in there. It'll
Speaker 3: take more than a week. Ray A sighed. Maybe I
Speaker 3: need to send her an apology. Ah, there you go,
Speaker 3: something decadent and not easy to find anywhere. An air on.
Speaker 3: Agagnier took out a lighter and ceremoniously handed it to her.
Speaker 3: I'll have to have my people think of something, Raya said,
Speaker 3: flicking it off and on. It would be a good
Speaker 3: thing to set her personal assistant to She hadn't spoken
Speaker 3: to him since she'd stuck him researching equipment for the
Speaker 3: trip that caused this whole mess. That's the spirit, it's
Speaker 3: the personal thought that counts, Agugnier said. That should help
Speaker 3: her forget all the vomit in her hair. He looked
Speaker 3: pointedly over at the cedars. The child's still throwing up.
Speaker 3: Raya confessed, it's pissing me off. I try to do
Speaker 3: the right thing and it goes all wrong. It's the
Speaker 3: story of my life, a gugnie. Everything is always a struggle.
Speaker 3: Raya held the lighter up to one of the branches
Speaker 3: in front of them. The flame flickered as it scorched
Speaker 3: the bark, and they both patiently waited for it to
Speaker 3: catch and quicken. You know, Agugnier said, thoughtfully, as the
Speaker 3: tree began to burn, you might need to get checked over. Mmm.
Speaker 3: Raya stepped back as the flames left higher. A doctor,
Speaker 3: you didn't take the child through customs like they have to,
Speaker 3: he nodded at the ground's crew, respectfully approaching with extinguishers.
Speaker 3: A gunie held up a hand so they stopped twenty
Speaker 3: feet away and waited. Oh shit, Raya said, we could
Speaker 3: have all been exposed to some exotic earth bug. Agugnier said,
Speaker 3: I'd get yourself checked up, or you might be the
Speaker 3: one vomiting everywhere we had our booster shots. Nevertheless, the
Speaker 3: smell of burning cedar made her mouth water. Raya made
Speaker 3: an appointment to have a doctor come in tomorrow, and
Speaker 3: she left the gardens to go have dinner with a Gugnie,
Speaker 3: a floating restaurant with a liquid menu nestled into, of
Speaker 3: all places, the docks at the center of Arawon. What
Speaker 3: do you think the ground's crew would do without us,
Speaker 3: Agugnie wondered. Later, as they hung in the air near
Speaker 3: an old wooden deck taken from some famous once sunken ship,
Speaker 3: and sucked at galact swirls of soup carefully deconstructed in
Speaker 3: the air between them, Raya poked a dumpling with a
Speaker 3: finger and watched it wobble its way towards the guignet's nose.
Speaker 3: He dipped his head at the last second to bite
Speaker 3: at it, but it tumbled away from his chin. They
Speaker 3: wouldn't have a job if it wasn't for us, Reyes said,
Speaker 3: we'd have to send them away where we're an orbital.
Speaker 3: It's not my job to think about those things. Raya
Speaker 3: protested and splashed broth droplets at him. The doctor came
Speaker 3: much later the next day, held up by an accident
Speaker 3: at the docks or something silly like that, and by
Speaker 3: then the vomiting kid had been passed from assistant to
Speaker 3: assistant all through the house and then exiled to one
Speaker 3: of the pool rooms. But after a painful blood draw
Speaker 3: and some checks on his machine and a few scans,
Speaker 3: the doctor looked over his glasses to clear her. The
Speaker 3: scan results on the glasses, full of complex imagery, reflected
Speaker 3: off his green eyes. Everything comes in normal, and you
Speaker 3: had your full compliment of booster shots before you left.
Speaker 3: Thank goodness, she said. But I'm glad you checked in.
Speaker 3: Can't be too safe. He started to pack up his equipment.
Speaker 3: I'm so relieved, Raya said, letting out the breath she'd
Speaker 3: been holding as she waited for the verdict. I thought
Speaker 3: maybe the boy had given me something. The doctor turned back,
Speaker 3: eyebrows raised, Raya groaned and rolled her eyes. No, not
Speaker 3: that it's the child we brought back up with us.
Speaker 3: He keeps vomiting. Well, maybe I should see him, the
Speaker 3: doctor said. Raya sighed, okay, sure. She explained how they'd
Speaker 3: found the child as she led the doctor through the
Speaker 3: hallways to the pool room. The large clear blister that
Speaker 3: held the pool bulged out beyond Erowan's metal hall. If
Speaker 3: you dove down into it, you could look out along
Speaker 3: the outside of Arawan, or down at the Earth. You
Speaker 3: could swim out into space. The domestic assistance had put
Speaker 3: the child in one of the bamboo cabanas around the pool,
Speaker 3: but he was sitting on the edge of the pool
Speaker 3: and looking down through it to earth home. He asked,
Speaker 3: a whole new word since she'd last been around him.
Speaker 3: Yah idly wondered if they were indeed passing over his home.
Speaker 3: As she looked down through the pool at the blurred
Speaker 3: land masses below them. Raya took out her diamond tipped
Speaker 3: heels and sat with her feet in the water as
Speaker 3: the doctor ran scans and then had to fight with
Speaker 3: the boy for a blood draw. He's malnourished, was the pronouncement.
Speaker 3: And you've been feeding him the wrong food. The wrong food,
Speaker 3: Raya frowned. I don't understand. We gave him the best food.
Speaker 3: He ate our table. The house chef prepared the meal.
Speaker 3: The doctor carefully unwrapped a candy bar and handed the
Speaker 3: wrapper over The child chewed on it, his sharp teeth,
Speaker 3: shredding it quickly before he swallowed in a noisy gulp.
Speaker 3: He's modified, the doctor said, his tone patient and completely polite,
Speaker 3: yet infuriating. Somehow all the surface folk are since the
Speaker 3: turn of the century. There are microbes that eat plastic.
Speaker 3: Those capabilities were grafted onto the human genome. He eats plastic.
Speaker 3: They had to do that or they'd all starve. Don't
Speaker 3: you remember this from history class? History class? He remember
Speaker 3: the exodus, her great grandparents, leaving the messy, despoiled Earth
Speaker 3: behind for the skies and other planets. Boring talks about
Speaker 3: translunar independence movements, the old democracies failing on Earth, and
Speaker 3: the great die offs. She vaguely remembered something about plastic.
Speaker 3: She should have paid more attention, but Eric had sat
Speaker 3: next to her in history, and she'd been so distracted. I
Speaker 3: guess I need to call Susie and see if we
Speaker 3: can put him back down, Raya said. Finally, Susie couldn't
Speaker 3: do it. Her family had found out she'd use the
Speaker 3: ship without clearing it, and she was haha grounded. Nothing
Speaker 3: Raya could say about humans being modified to eat trash
Speaker 3: in order to survive after being left on the surface
Speaker 3: made a difference. The child was stuck on air one.
Speaker 3: Garrison agreed to come over, but he didn't have anything
Speaker 3: to offer other than too many attempts to touch her
Speaker 3: hands or knee or get close to her. I think
Speaker 3: he really needs to get put somewhere where he can eat,
Speaker 3: she told Garrison. It's not going to be good for
Speaker 3: him in our house. We don't have that much plastic
Speaker 3: on a house scale. No oil in space. Plastics came
Speaker 3: from plants, and it made more sense to eat plants
Speaker 3: than waste them on packaging. But Raya knew where most
Speaker 3: of the plastics ended up. Come on, Garrison, help me
Speaker 3: take him to the vats. Garrison groaned, but she finally
Speaker 3: promised that she'd make it up to him afterwards. He
Speaker 3: was convinced he was going to get laid, but she
Speaker 3: was really thinking about the bottle of mccollin and the
Speaker 3: family vault. Or maybe she'd save the priceless scotch and
Speaker 3: fool around. Sex wouldn't be a bad way to kill
Speaker 3: some of her frustrations. Later, Garrison helped wrestle the child
Speaker 3: into a cart and they drove over to the vats,
Speaker 3: where they pulled him through the airlock. It reeks. Garrison said,
Speaker 3: it wasn't quite the trash parks of Earth, but it
Speaker 3: was the holding area for acres of Erewhon's own trash
Speaker 3: before it got scrunched off to the recycling vats. Here
Speaker 3: you go, Raya said, you can live here now, all
Speaker 3: the food you need. The child looked at her, not
Speaker 3: getting it go on. It took some convincing, some shouting,
Speaker 3: and a little subterfuge, but then finally got the boy
Speaker 3: to settle in between two hillsized mounds of trash, munching
Speaker 3: contentedly away on some plastic carry bags. At the airlock,
Speaker 3: Raya took one last look back. This is where I
Speaker 3: had to leave Mittens, she said, sadly, Mittens my cat.
Speaker 3: Oh I wish Raya trailed off, forming her thoughts. I
Speaker 3: wish our families hadn't been forced to leave Earth and
Speaker 3: take everything with them. If they'd been allowed to stay,
Speaker 3: maybe they could have used their resources to help make
Speaker 3: every make things better. Garrison stared at her, who said
Speaker 3: they were forced. Raya frowned. My family, that's he laughed.
Speaker 3: We left because we could, because we're better richer superior.
Speaker 3: Garrison hit the button and the airlock doors thudded shut,
Speaker 3: leaving the earth child alone in their trash. He tried
Speaker 3: to take her back to the family house, but she
Speaker 3: dropped him off at his penthouse. Disappointed, Garrison would be
Speaker 3: on his own for the night and without the antique Scotch,
Speaker 3: Raya said on the edge of the pool, looking down
Speaker 3: at the Earth passing by on each rotation of the
Speaker 3: orbital's great wheel until it was time for dinner. By then,
Speaker 3: her vague sense of guilt or responsibility had passed. You
Speaker 3: couldn't save every broken stray, even with the best intentions,
Speaker 3: She decided. The duh, is that is that the story? Yeah?
Speaker 3: That's the story Alrighty. I like how it's subtle and
Speaker 3: would really take a lot of work to deconstruct what
Speaker 3: it's talking about here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very very lofty, kind of far out, far out ideas.
Speaker 2: It's it's uh diving into very fantasy, very fantasy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's nothing like this as any there's no real
Speaker 3: world parallels to you know, the way people treat.
Speaker 2: We would never eat plastic. What are you talking about?
Speaker 3: Well, that part is like that's the only utopian part
Speaker 3: we would.
Speaker 2: They would never put a plastic in our food. What
Speaker 2: do you eat?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Oh god, I wasn't even thinking about microplastics.
Speaker 2: No, yeah, we definitely don't eat a credit cards worth
Speaker 2: of plastic every week? It's fine, whoa do we really?
Speaker 2: I might I might be wrong on the week. There.
Speaker 2: Let's see.
Speaker 3: Is this like the five spiders a year thing or
Speaker 3: is this like real?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: This is this is this is this is real? No,
Speaker 3: I do believe it. I mean there's yeah. I think
Speaker 3: about when I compost where I like, I compost shredded
Speaker 3: paper and yeah, shredded cardboard, And that means that, like
Speaker 3: I'm composting things with tiny amounts of plastic in it,
Speaker 3: because like you know, there's tiny little bits of plastic.
Speaker 2: Yes, every every week we eat about a credit card's
Speaker 2: worth a plastic. Isn't that cool?
Speaker 3: Yeah? It's good for us.
Speaker 2: Isn't that an uplifting thought about civilization?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I like how we look back at the people
Speaker 3: who like ate off of lead plates and are like
Speaker 3: fucking war on.
Speaker 2: Those idiots, those fools Yeah, they didn't know better back then,
Speaker 2: unlike us, the enlightened modern people.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, what's funny is we do know better and we
Speaker 3: just like can't do anything about Well, yeah, because where
Speaker 3: the We're not Raya and Garrison in this story.
Speaker 2: No, no, we're the trash child. Yes, absolutely. All we
Speaker 2: can do is make a mountain out of our trash
Speaker 2: and maybe subterranean tunnels in the trash. I propose a
Speaker 2: dual power solution to this, where we build out our
Speaker 2: infrastructure on the trash planet. We're also strengthening our forces
Speaker 2: to overtake the space ships. But I'm I'm sure the
Speaker 2: anti sims will just try to blow up the ships
Speaker 2: in the first place.
Speaker 3: So yeah, and you know, I don't want to like
Speaker 3: stop them from trying, but I do want to eventually
Speaker 3: also get the space ships.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean it is. It is part of
Speaker 2: I think humanity's quest for the heaven.
Speaker 3: I read too much Octavia Butler to be like anti
Speaker 3: humans figuring out a way to space. I just don't
Speaker 3: want it to be colonized by the rich bastards.
Speaker 2: We have which is really really the only way to
Speaker 2: see which unfortunately it's the only way where it's like
Speaker 2: it looks like it's gonna happen. Because also, if if
Speaker 2: there was ever like an anarchists space program, it would
Speaker 2: be sabotaged by other anarchists. It's just not fun. It's
Speaker 2: just not possible.
Speaker 3: There was a huge UH in the like nineteen tens,
Speaker 3: and then in nineteen twenties in Russia there were the
Speaker 3: anarcho cosmists, and they were I mean, it was mostly
Speaker 3: this sort of weird theological, i mean political movement where
Speaker 3: they were going to like resurrect the dead and like
Speaker 3: have like gay space communism basically nice nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: but they were some of the last anarchists that the
Speaker 3: the USSR put up with because they were a little
Speaker 3: bit like lost in their own heads and not doing
Speaker 3: much political stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's that's why I I do kind of respect the
Speaker 2: anarchists to like cling onto Star Trek as like as
Speaker 2: like a utopian future despite despite Starfleet's many problems. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it still is like one of like the better better
Speaker 2: like end end results for like humanity and even like
Speaker 2: the Earth, because like the Earth's doing great in Star
Speaker 2: Trek's future as well, like it it survives total cataclysm
Speaker 2: and now it's like a very very healthy ecosystem for
Speaker 2: animals and humans and other animals and plants and fungi
Speaker 2: and the whales that talk to space signals.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's why I want to have both. We
Speaker 3: have to solve the problems of the problem of the
Speaker 3: rich people, and then we can have both space and
Speaker 3: a green utopia here on Earth. And in the means,
Speaker 3: it would be nice. Don't steal old children from places
Speaker 3: that are places that have been impoverished by first world
Speaker 3: gun you know, like.
Speaker 2: You know, I can't think of any any examples of
Speaker 2: rich people coming into improvished areas and just kidnapping children. Now,
Speaker 2: I cannot imagine where the author might be might be
Speaker 2: pulling that outrageous idea for.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally totally out It's just science fiction.
Speaker 2: I will say. I do like the idea of having
Speaker 2: a bathroom where I can just look down into space
Speaker 2: in the floor. It's like just like sitting on the toilet,
Speaker 2: just like staring into the abyss.
Speaker 3: I want to swim in that. See. That's why it's
Speaker 3: like I want the nice stuff for everyone. I want
Speaker 3: to swim in the bubble pool that looks out over
Speaker 3: all of everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, we should we should bring back like like
Speaker 2: like like the uh like the Roman public baths, but
Speaker 2: just put just put them in space for everybody. Go
Speaker 2: have your space bath. No. That that that is the one.
Speaker 2: Speaking of trick again, When when William Shatner was hoisted
Speaker 2: up to almost outer space on I think it was
Speaker 2: Jeff Bezos's penis shaped rocket, he wrote his like his
Speaker 2: immediate like he he thought he'd be like filled with
Speaker 2: like wonder and awe, and he's like, no, space is terrifying.
Speaker 2: There's nothing there. It's just an abyss of darkness. We
Speaker 2: need to go back to Earth. Earth is where the
Speaker 2: life is. Space was terrifying, which I do find to
Speaker 2: be a very a very fun reaction as well, as
Speaker 2: you like stare into like absolute oblivion, like the cold
Speaker 2: death of everything, and you're like, no, no, there's like
Speaker 2: light on the Earth. Let's go back to her.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But you know, if I'm like hungover and I'm puking
Speaker 2: into a and I'm puking into a toilet, I would
Speaker 2: also like to just look off to the side into
Speaker 2: the abyss and like see how I feel about it,
Speaker 2: you know, Yeah, and then I can decide if I
Speaker 2: want to go back to puking in the toilet.
Speaker 3: That makes sense. Well, it's because you didn't eden of plastic.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's I had. I hadn't got my credit
Speaker 2: cards worth in.
Speaker 3: It's a hangover cure that everyone should try. Well, the
Speaker 3: classic promo at the end of this for us is
Speaker 3: that we both have podcasts. What's your podcast that you
Speaker 3: might really do? The feed of already, dear listener.
Speaker 2: Well, I spend a lot of time working on a
Speaker 2: podcast called it Could Happen Here. One of my more
Speaker 2: recent projects that I'm proud of is a Halloween special
Speaker 2: I put together about the Oregon Ghost Conference. And then
Speaker 2: I also I kind of made a follow up episode
Speaker 2: about this tech company called mind bank AI who wants
Speaker 2: to trap your brain inside a computer. So those those
Speaker 2: projects are are my my most recent favorite things I've
Speaker 2: worked on. No, those can be found on the it
Speaker 2: Could Happen Here feed wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3: I liked the Ghost Conference one. I didn't dislike the
Speaker 3: other one, but the Ghost Conference was really good.
Speaker 2: It was fun. I had, I had, I had a
Speaker 2: great time.
Speaker 3: It's fun to hear from a someone who's skeptical around
Speaker 3: the grift around ghost stuff, but is not like a
Speaker 3: like raw pure angry atheists.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I'm not like a Reddit like debunker.
Speaker 2: I'm I Like, I think a lot of these these
Speaker 2: ideas have some conceptual basis in the way that they
Speaker 2: interact with like our brain and how we form like
Speaker 2: phenomenons that create our reality. But also I think the
Speaker 2: way that a lot of these ghost hunters are going
Speaker 2: about it is maybe slightly misguided and it's kind of
Speaker 2: missing the point of what these concepts were like invented
Speaker 2: for in the first place. And it is certainly really
Speaker 2: interesting area to be and when I'm like when I'm
Speaker 2: when I'm like in these paranormal spaces because I I
Speaker 2: believe in a lot weirder stuff than they do, but
Speaker 2: I don't believe in the type of weird thing they do.
Speaker 2: And it's certainly an interesting thing to navigate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, it comes across and it's good listening. And
Speaker 3: if you're listening to this on that it could happen
Speaker 3: here feed, you can listen to my podcast that comes
Speaker 3: out every Monday and Wednesday called Cool People Who Did
Speaker 3: Cool Stuff, where I talk about history and people who
Speaker 3: were cool who did cool things. Actually, a lot of
Speaker 3: times I have to talk about complicated people who look
Speaker 3: through on the surface and then you realize that they
Speaker 3: kind of sucked but they still did cool things.
Speaker 2: Because we're all you say that. Are you saying that
Speaker 2: cool people are not universally good?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: In every single way about their life.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And if you want to know more about Tobias Bukell,
Speaker 3: you should google him. And his latest book is called
Speaker 3: A Stranger in the Citadel. I haven't gotten a read yet,
Speaker 3: I've read a lot of his other stuff, but John Scalzy,
Speaker 3: author of the Kaiju Preservation Society, has this to say
Speaker 3: about his Toby's latest book, with A Stranger in the Citadel,
Speaker 3: Tobias Bukell writes to the moment we live in with
Speaker 3: a clarity and urgency that only fable can provide. Read it.
Speaker 3: So I will leave you all with that and talk
Speaker 3: to you next week on Sunday for the Cool Zone
Speaker 3: Hie everyone.
Speaker 1: It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 1: cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1: You can find sources for it could happen here. Updated
Speaker 1: monthly at Coolzonmedia dot com Slash sources. Thanks for listening.