Hello, my name is Alison Bell-Bews, pleased to be your muse for the Lightspeed Magazine podcast. Today, we have quite the pair of stories for your listening pleasure. First up is the short shot, The Price of Miracles, by Nigel Faustino, narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. Coming up right after this message. The Warning Woods has haunting horror stories that are sure to linger with you long after listening. I'm Miles Treidel, writer and narrator of The Warning Woods.
Each week, I write an original scary story and share it with you. If you're into scary stories, you need to check out The Warning Woods. Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just search for The Warning Woods and click play at your own risk. Can you change your personality? How does peer pressure work? Should you ever really trust your gut? These are just a few of the topics we've recently tackled on my podcast, Something You Should Know.
It's a podcast where leading experts give you valuable intel that you can use in your life today. I'm the host, Mike Carruthers, and with over 1,000 episodes and over 4,000 mostly 5-star reviews, I invite you to check out Something You Should Know, wherever you listen. And now, Stefan Rudnicki. The Price of Miracles by Nigel Fastino You can't bid more than we agreed on. Please don't get swept into it, Jules said as we exited the Bard on Market Street, the sun beating down at us.
He shed a denim jacket while I suffered in my hoodie, which had made sense in Oakland, less so here. You can't believe what I saw when I temped at one of these divine auctions. I'm talking golden cattle, firstborn children, the smell of their grandma's cookie. I know, I know, we talked about this, I said, sidestepping a puddle of human or god piss. Nothing more than what we agreed.
We'd put together a bankroll from our friends and family, from memories to magic to prophecies. But I wasn't sure if it would be enough to buy my miracle back. It would have to be. What's keeping your eyesight worth if you can't use the letter E? Jules said. Hey, stop. Light's red. I squinted. Fuck. I thought I could still make out colors. I didn't even think about it.
It had only been a few months since the diagnosis. The night blindness had come first, and there were blind spots in the corner of my eyes now. but the colorblindness was new and apparently uncommon. Lucky me. The only treatment option available that the doctor knew of was a miracle from a specific medical god. Matinos, who had been born a few years ago, but before I could even apply for it, the god had gone belly up, as these new gods tended to, hence the auction for its asset.
You said it wasn't getting worse. Well, maybe not. Guess the doctor was wrong. So unless you want me to die on the way there, I offered up my hand. He sighed. You're taking advantage of me, I grinned, always looking for an opportunity. Our fingers interlaced. He led me across the street. We entered the office building, identical to the rest, except for the matinos on the side.
Jules guided us down hallways that I'd believe were a maze before we reached a bone-white sign in front of a room, Asset Sale of the Deceased God Matinos by the Bank of the Drowned One. We walked in and found ourselves surrounded by gods, old and new, priests, and money. Oh, you could always tell who had money in the city, even blind. Inside, a man hit a bell. His voice gurgled like liquid was lodged in his lungs, but kept trying to escape.
We thank everyone for coming. We'll be starting in two minutes with a sale of Matanosa's assets. The corpse has been spoken for, as mentioned in the posting. We sat in the back, next to a pair of elderly men in matching sweatsuits. In front of us sat a woman, shoulders as broad as mine and Jules' combined, whispering to a skull in her lap. "'Chairs, office supplies. Got it,' she said. "'I know they have those binders you like,' the skull replied with a chatter of teeth.
The banker spoke with that wet voice. First kitchen supplies. Item number one, a restaurant-quality stove, 10 burners, perfect if you want to outfit your temple for an all-day meal service. Not recommended for human sacrifice. The oven went for a golden calf. An espresso machine for a color I'd never seen. Then office supply. The woman made off with the bulk, the skull clacking away. Then a throne for the thirty silver coins, an ever-burning pyre for a recipe for a foe.
I watched the way the banker watched the bidders, trying to figure out how he determined value. Maybe the bank didn't need the thought, but they did like the idea of being the only ones with it. That was enough. Then my miracle was up. Fourth item in this lot, we have the miracle to cure failing vision. This miracle involves a proprietary blend of blood and ash, which will be given to the successful bid.
Jules started to speak. The last prophecy of Nostra, a record of the first nightmare, said a bald man in a turtleneck. He held up a stone tablet that made my vision swim. I said, last prophecy of Nostradamus and the memories of four sets of parents witnessing their children's first steps. Jules's hand tightened. I whispered, I can do this. The nightmare and the jawbone that committed the first murder, the man said, showing too many teeth for a human. And the corpse. Fuck, Jules muttered.
What else could we offer? A kidney? Sarcasm? Indefinite servitude? I could text my family, but they'd given so much. I was stupid to think that we could compete with these rich assholes with whatever we could scrounge up. But I needed this to work. I needed my miracle. I was thinking of what I could cut from my life, from the lives of the people I loved, when Jules stood up. the prophecy, the memories of first steps, and my memories of true love. Fuck. What the fuck do you think you're doing?
Don't worry, he said. It's from my other true love, but I'm fine settling for you. Stop joking. I'm not laughing. I wasn't. But there was a smile I was fighting. I'm not, asshole. Why would you be so stupid? The bald man said. The nightmare, the jawbone, the corpse, the confession, and a limerick composed by the murderer. I'm getting you that miracle, Jules said. He smiled, this asshole. I love you. A lot, actually, so that has to be worth a lot. Maybe one miracle's worth.
The prophecy, the memories, the love, and my eyesight. I wanted to see. I wanted to see so fucking bad, but not like this. Please stop, I said, but I didn't know if I meant it. I had to mean it. I had to fucking mean it. The woman with the skull spoke. A cure for the common cold. A cat's ninth life. She paused, listening to the skull's chatter. The lie that would break a righteous man.
I can make it work, Jules said. We're going to make it work. I'll add my soul. And I saw the banker lick his lip. Needed him to love me less and himself more. Needed to... The twins sitting next to us sat up now, scoffing. the first true love of Shakespeare, the location of the last polar bear, and the cause of the next great quake, and the four forgotten states between life and death, they added. Jules and I froze, my plea stuck in my throat.
Enough, Jules. I got out. I forced him back down, pulling like I wanted to dislocate his shoulder. Please. He stared at the podium, at the banker, at the predators. There has to be more we could give. Maybe there was. Maybe we could win. and they'd get to add our scraps to their pile. Or maybe we would dig at ourselves until we hit marrow, then deeper still, and they'd still have more, endless pits of more.
No, there isn't, I said. Look at me. I grabbed his hand with my other hand, too, squeezing until I formed a vice. I don't need you to give anything up for me. I just need you. The bidding kept going. Guards and priests gambled the fate of the universe over a miracle they didn't need. And I looked at Jules and begged him to let it slip away. Jules met my eyes. I could feel his breath and mine, shaky, even out. Okay, he said, his eyes watering before he rubbed them. Okay. Then he smiled.
That was pretty romantic of me, right? I can still see enough to kill you. We left before the winning bid. We passed by a family in the corner, holding each other, crying. I thought about asking what they had lost. Thought about if they tricked themselves into thinking they could outbid these monsters. Or maybe they'd won. And now we're facing the weight of everything they'd given up. We kept walking.
The sun was just setting when we exited. Neither of us said anything as we walked, fingers interlaced. But I kept looking at him, memorizing him, his face, the way his eyebrows scrunched together when he was thinking, the wrinkles in his forehead, the way he tensed up when he wanted to get mad at my joke. the way his hand felt in mine, the roughness of his palms, the warmth in his skin. That would be enough.
I looked at San Francisco, the city of gods, gray buildings overlapping with gray streets, none of it for us. At another intersection, before the walk sign turned on, I kissed Jules' cheek, then his hand, and I propelled us forward against his protests, dodging cars and leading us home together. You have just heard The Price of Miracles by Nigel Faustino, narrated by Stefan Rudnicki and directed by me.
Nigel Faustino is a Filipino-American writer living in New York. He placed third in Dream Foundry's 2024 Emerging Writers' Contest, and his work has appeared in Lightspeed. He's also written about television and video games at Into the Spine and Polygon. You can find him on Blue Sky at nigelfaustino.bsky.social. Welcome back. Up next, we have a continuation of last week's story by Sarah Langan. So, if you missed it, go ahead and give that episode a listen. Don't worry, we'll wait.
Oh, good. You're back. Up next is Does Harlan Latner Dream of Infected Sheep? Part 2, narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. Coming up right after this message. Get started with the commerce platform made for entrepreneurs. Shopify is specially designed to help you start, run,
and grow your business with easy, customizable themes that let you build your brand. Marketing tools that get your products out there. Integrated shipping solutions that actually save you time. From startups to scale-ups, online, in person, and on the go. Shopify is made for entrepreneurs. Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com. Buckle up. We're going to light speed. Does Harlan Latner Dream of Infected Sheep, Part 2, by Sarah Langan?
February 4, 2034 AI Compendium Classified documents stolen from Congo last year were released this morning. These indicate morally, ethically, and legally dubious research on their own workforce as they seek more productive employees. The Attorney General of Virginia, which has jurisdiction, says it has no comment.
Congo released a statement this afternoon. We at Congo believe in the essential value of every human being. We've devoted our lives to making the world safer and more efficient for their benefit. In other news, excess deaths increased eightfold this week and are all linked to heart attacks, seizures, and abdominal hernias among otherwise healthy individuals. All deceased are Congo Interface users. Congo denies any connection.
That night, Lattner had a panic attack. He'd never had one before, but as a physician, understood that his heart, pulsing at just 85 beats per minute, was under no serious threat. Still, it felt like he was changing. It felt for just a heated, sweaty moment that his organs had slipped and realigned. He called his kids and neither answered, so he took a deep breath and called Lorna.
I'm at work, she said. But like I told you, Congo promised to keep them safe and healthy. I can see them through the camera. They're fine. Send me the password for the stream on them or I'm calling the cop. And saying what? she asked. Anything. Everything. Send it. I'm their father. I have a right. Since when?
Our whole lives together, I don't think you changed a single diaper. What are you talking about? She could be such a pain in the ass. He really hated her sometimes. And then he thought, was he supposed to have changed diapers? Did she have a point? I'm worried. I'm... Jesus, I'm sick with worry. I think I might even be worried about you. Help me out here, Lorna. You're worried about me, she said, not like a question, but like a statement she was controverting. I am, he said. You jackass.
I had a nervous breakdown. We never called it that. You couldn't stand to hear it, but that's what it was. Ten years ago, I was in a mental hospital for three months, and you never visited me. Do you remember that? You weren't so worried about me then. I visited, he said. No, she said. Not once. I used to sit there on visitor's day like a jerk. You never even brought the kids. I miss them so much. That's impossible, Latner said, his heart beating fast all over again. No, wait.
I remember. We decided you needed time to yourself. You decided, she said, I never got a say in anything. Ladner's heart thudded in his throat. He surveyed his small apartment, thinking it was dumb to have picked the one here, when across town there had been a complex with a pool that the kids might have liked. thinking he should have hung posters in their rooms or made their beds so they didn't have to bring their own sheets and towels.
I feel so sick, he said. I feel like I'm dying. Latner, she said, her voice soft. What's wrong with you? Why can't you talk about anything important? I don't know, he said. And now he was crying, his speech broken and shaking. I don't mean to be this person. Okay, she said. I'm sending the link. They're okay, and I'm okay, she said. Thanks, he said, weeping now. Soon after, he watched them in their rooms through ceiling-mounted cameras.
They were aware of these cameras, but had mostly forgotten about them. Bee was tuned to a streamie in her bedroom. Ladner counted her respiration, nine breaths per minute. This was low, even for a resting rate, but not alarmingly so. He zoomed in, tried to see her skin. Was she pale? But the resolution wasn't strong enough. Dylan was jerking off, his respiration slightly elevated.
Latner felt a measure of compunction about this. Still, he zoomed to see what the kid was looking at. A man, a woman. This too was out of focus. He couldn't tell. But they were alive at least. Not sick. A kind of trilling panic inside him suddenly eased. What was this emotion? Relief. Jesus, he never felt this way about any of his family while he had them. Lornad asked a good question. Why now? A kind of compulsion took over after that. He wrote B a letter.
Honey, it's your dad, Harlan Ladner. I feel I should let you know that I love you, and I'm sorry if I have not been a good father to you. I have wanted to do right by you, but I believe I was afraid that anything I touched would only result in disaster. I wonder now whether I erred. I should also tell you that you are not alone in your sadness. I was on the very same medication you are now taking for depression. I have always felt very badly that you inherited this from me.
Though in hindsight, I wonder whether both our emotional troubles are caused not by genes at all, but by environment. I'll not bore you with the details of my own upbringing except to say that I never feel free or good or of any value at all. It could not have been easy when your mother got so sick that I doubled down on work and disappeared too. I was additionally upset when you got your diagnosis because there was a correlation with what we have and suicide.
This possibility was so deplorable to me that I could not speak it or acknowledge any problem at all. Dylan, it's your dad, Harlan Latner. It occurs to me that we have never had a good relationship. I've always felt it's because you hate me and believe I'm a bad husband to your mother. But I wonder if I only projected this and felt so bad about it that I stayed away from you. I assumed I'd earned your hate and so accepted it without ever questioning it.
It lately occurs to me that perhaps your feelings are your own and not entirely caused by my existence. So I suppose I should ask, why are you so angry? Can I help? Additionally, I'd like to let you know that my own father was a malignant presence in my life. I absented myself from knowing you. I assumed that my absence could only be an improvement. But sons ought to have fathers. These fathers ought to approve of them.
Perhaps you will allow me to get to know you better so that I might be able to confirm that judgment. Yours sincerely, Your Father Harlan Latner Ladner read these a few times, agonizing over them, and ultimately decided not to send them. They seemed self-indulgent, and he couldn't get the words right. What he did realize through writing them was that he loved his children. It was absurd that he'd ever convinced himself otherwise.
Feeling calmer, he searched the streamies that night for news, then scoured the social networks. At first he found nothing, but in the wee small hours of the morning he found an encrypted site reachable only by anonymous browser. In this were thousands of anecdotes reporting sickness and death, but also, and more often, that loved ones weren't behaving as they should. They'd developed flat affects. They didn't remember personal information. They seemed dazed.
The posters were attributing this to the Congo update. The name the group gave it was The Great Amnesia. When dawn arrived, he called Lorna. She didn't answer the first ten times, which seemed fair. When she finally did answer, she was pissed off, which also seemed fair. Are you hearing anything in your department about the Congo update, he asked. Like?
She had this way of never being surprised. Aliens could jump out of their ship and present her with petunias, and she'd say, that's nice, I'm late though. And then he remembered that she hadn't always been like that. It was only after her breakdown that she'd disconnected from him and the rest of them. Before that, she'd been eager and interested.
All these dead people, the personality disorders, they're attributing it to the Congo update. That's just crazy people. Maybe not. You should stay home, all of you. Let me come over. I can help. She lowered her voice as if someone might be listening. Even if there is a connection, what do you think you can do about it? They're safe, I've been assured. What's causing it? Other than the update? No one knows. But they're working on it. Everyone's working on it. No one wanted this outcome.
How long have you known? I don't know now. Nothing's explicit. I'm connecting dots. He leaned into the wall. It was strange. You can play-act a life with someone for decades, and then the play's done. The hospital is about to make consoles mandatory. Were you even going to warn me? No, she said. I told you, they're fixing it. The media has it all overblown. It's a few isolated incidents. There's no reason to warn anyone.
Can you take their consoles away until this is sorted? I'm serious right now. I want a real answer. Why do you suddenly care about them? Is this all to punish me? Why can't you just let me have them? She asked. I always cared about them. I care about you. I just didn't know it, he said. She sighed deep and long. Then she hung up.
He was at work an hour later, and what he did when he got there was ill-advised, dumb even. He buzzed himself into the morgue. The bodies in the freezer were stacked in long drawers, none locked. A few medical examiners were hanging around, but they stayed in their lanes and didn't ask questions. He opened the chest-high drawer in the center. Jane Doe. He unzipped the black bag and conducted an autopsy.
Jane's chest cavity was a wild growth of pink tissue. A tube ran from throat and then went spherical, its gills upright in a protean stew of fluid. The tubing was tangled, and where it knotted, it had bulged into a bubblegum-like rupture, just like with his initial patient. The human body is very complex. It needs sleep to keep its brain fresh.
It needs food every few hours. It needs water constantly. It needs an endless supply of oxygen. It has to eliminate the waste products of metabolic reactions at least five times a day. But this system wasn't complex. Pink fluid pulsed, replacing the heart and its blood. Gills received this fluid and presumably extracted oxygen. This digestive circulatory and pulmonary tract was much simpler, like a hydro.
He stitched Jane up. Went through five more bodies. One body looked normal. The other two had the same fungal type disease. He took a tissue sample under the microscope. The cells were clearly defined and cholesterol-rich. They weren't fungal. They were human. It would probably take a few days before anyone reported that he'd broken into the morgue. Someone would have to complain, and then a higher-up would have to review the video, figure out it wasn't typical, and send it up the food chain.
Up the food chain, someone would have to identify him, make a decision, send that decision down. The Congo algorithm was great when things were predictable. In randomness, it was molasses in winter. At work, triage was a mess, and so was surgical. The floor was wet with pepto-bismol-colored blood. The patients weren't making it to surgery in time, were dying in gurneys.
Before his shift ended, he found himself in surgery with the same procedure. This time he didn't hesitate. He reached in with his hands and untangled the intestine. Jane Doe's body stopped seizing. He visited Tucker Rhodes' office once his shift was done. Hey, any news on all this? Did anybody ever call you back? Tucker took a second to process what he'd said, and Congo answered, the system cannot process the information. Right, Ladner said, we know that. But did you hear anything from your dad?
Tucker bent down, listening to his headset. I'm sorry, I have filing. I'm not on break right now. Classified Internal Memorandum, Congo Corp., February 9, 2034. 2. Micah Peters, Congo CEO, Lorna Latner, Department of Innovation Legal, Frank Henry, Congo Trust Reserve Application. From Paul McKenzie, R&D, Simon Iscariot, R&D, Lucas Johnson, R&D. To our senior officers, it is with some surprise that we've received the results of the Congo 5.0 roll-up.
It appears that the application has had a psychological effect on the majority of users. Perhaps all users? Our working theory is this. When the Congo app activated transmogrification genes to make users more docile and efficient during their workdays, slower metabolisms, disconnected minds, we accidentally initiated the metamorphosis of the human species into a simpler life form.
In addition, 0.01% of users experience intestinal knotting during metamorphosis, which is fatal unless addressed surgically. Another 0.01% experience psychotic episodes resulting in suicide. It's imperative we keep this secret to prevent widespread panic. As I type, our brilliant researchers are working toward cures. Guys, this was a total accident.
Blatner documented everything he'd learned and seen since opening up John Doe and sent it to the anonymous website. The kids were coming for their bi-monthly weekend visit the next night. He was thinking about spying on them to make sure they weren't sick when Jerry showed up for their date. Jerry arrived carrying a bag full of weird sex paraphernalia. Possibly some of it was ordinary sex paraphernalia. Blattner'd spend most of his life too afraid to investigate such things.
My husband's gone, Jerry said. Dead? That's awful. How? No. They're fleshing us out. Congo raised our rent. It owns the building. He moved into the warehouse. Congo offered these sleep pods for everybody. It's cheaper. He says he doesn't care about material things anymore. Or Congo says it. Who knows? He never takes those headphones off. They had crazy sex that night. Sex Lattner had never imagined. Sex that answered questions. Sex that meant nothing. Sex that meant everything.
I should quit my job and move in with you, Jerry said as they lay in bed. Ladner went rigid. Same old Harlan, Jerry said. Latner felt that and felt bad about that, but couldn't bring himself to do anything about it. Jerry said he wasn't hungry. His stomach had been sour. He hadn't been sleeping well either. Ladner placed his hand on Jerry's belly. It pulsed worryingly. You might have the thing that's going around, he said.
He was panting suddenly, his forehead slick with sweat. Why don't you come with me to the hospital? I can run some tests. You don't have to take care of me, Jerry said, wounded just like he used to be wounded. I'm not your obligation. Ladner kissed him goodbye at the door, feeling strangely like, if he did not get down on his knees and beg Jerry to stay, that the attachment between them, tenuous invisible strings that had persisted over so many years. would finally tear. Jerry left.
The hospital the next day was quieter. Fewer patients were exhibiting abdominal or cardiac symptoms. The employees seemed especially quiet, too. In the absence of the emergent or new, they tuned out, let their headsets do the thinking. At last the day had come and mandatory headsets were issued to all the docs on staff. Ladner tried his. The voice inside lulled literal sweet nothings. Shoo-be-doo-la-loom-dee-lee.
Staccato prompts in the music told him when to repeat what the voice was telling him, told him where to put his hands, what tests to run. He spent the day like this in a kind of floating, even as his body moved. His kids arrived late that weekend. Lorna delayed them at her house so she could familiarize the new nanny with the routine while she was out of town.
She'd be relocating to Congo headquarters the following Monday, a cluster of buildings that functioned like a small town for the very top executives, in order to address the update crisis. She'd been promised once again that the kids would be safe. This nanny in particular had been debriefed and would make sure they didn't get infected. She'd also been told that the headsets represented zero threat. They could all continue wearing them indefinitely. We're too old for a nanny, Dylan said.
Ladner wondered if this changed the custody agreement, if the kids would now stay at his house. Though he wanted them around, he wasn't sure he was ready to have them full-time. Worried he'd mess it up. Also, where would he be able to meet up with Jerry? The nanny's weird, Beatrice said. Even when she's on break, her implants glow green. You clap your hands in front of her, and she doesn't blink.
She doesn't laugh, Dylan said. She doesn't smile, Beatrice said. Yeah, she does. But it's a creepy smile, like the interface told her to. You're like that sometimes. No, you, asshole. They'd hardly walked in the door. We're still bantering. He noticed their pallor was green, and they moved too slowly for healthy kids. It set off alarms. Had Congo done this?
And how could they know for certain that the headsets weren't a threat? I have good news and bad news, Latner told them. My house is a no-screeny-or-interface house. We can read books or talk or whatever we want. Beatrice and Dylan went simultaneously ballistic. It was like manifesting a tornado. There was literal screaming. There was stomping. He covered his ears at the horrible high-pitchedness.
He'd played this out in his mind. They'd rebel, grabbing interfaces and ignoring him. Bewildered, he'd throw up his hands and give up. Nothing would change, but at least he'd be able to tell himself he'd tried. What happened instead was almost worse. They ganged up. They argued relentlessly. Over the following hours, they broke down, weeping. They shouted. They made him feel like a total dipshit. But they never disobeyed him.
He went to bed Saturday night close to tears. By Sunday, they were all tired. Listless, they sat together at the kitchen table and played gin rummy. He tried to coax them into eating something. They'd skipped a dinner and breakfast, said their stomachs hurt, and at last managed to foist some crackers. A funny thing happened. The first hour of Rummy was excruciating. They weren't the only ones who missed the fucking screenies.
But the second hour went very quickly, and somehow they played into a third hour. When it was time for them to go, they all stood at the door while the ride waited outside. Nobody knew what to do. Typically, the kids showed themselves out. Lattner made the first move. He hugged Bea. Then he hugged Dylan. What surprised him? They hugged back. His eyes were unreasonably wet. He was sniffling, trying not to cry. He looked away from them. It was too hard. Still, he said the words.
I love you, both of you, very much. I'm sorry I haven't said it more often. Neither Bea nor Dylan answered that, but Bea smiled. Then they were out. He followed them to the street, waved to the car. They looked out, watching him as it carried them away. Dillon offered the tiniest of nods. The rest of the day felt strange and terrifying and wondrous. He imagined this was how real dads felt all the time. Had Lorna endured this weight,
Terrible, responsible love all alone. Was that what had broken her, then changed her for the worse? The loneliness of carrying the emotion of an entire family all on her own? Work the next day was quiet. The people were quiet. The routines were quiet. There weren't any new patients with abdominal issues. The nurses moved with emotionless efficiency, so did the admins. Only Ocean seemed her usual self.
Watching her enter the surgical lounge was like watching a daisy in a windy field of orchids. It bent differently, swaying with greater, wilder life. She saw him right away and sidled up. I'm going to ask you the same question I asked you last time. What is happening? You noticed it too. It's like sleepwalkers.
Only it's hard to remember. I keep thinking I should do something, but everything's so fuzzy. Maybe we're becoming pot people, he said. They both looked at each other. And yeah, maybe that was the exact truth. You'd think under those circumstances that they'd both have run screaming from the hospital. They'd have tossed Molotov cocktails through windows, shouted from bullhorns. Probably that's exactly what some people did.
but not them. To break the tension, Ocean made a raspberry at him. Then the bell rang, signaling the end of their break. His shift ended before Oceans, and a funny thing happened. They must have threatened her job because she was wearing her headset. He watched her wind through the halls just like everyone else, her steps preordained to maximize efficiency. Did he look like that? He didn't remember his shifts anymore. They blurred. A set of instructions and music.
He didn't remember his patients' faces either. If the intention of 5.0 was to make life more pleasant, it had failed. When the day was done, he didn't feel accomplished. He felt empty. After work, he retrieved the photo he'd taken on his phone of that first patient's Congo employee badge. The first numbers represented a warehouse number, a local one, and the same at which Jerry worked. Ladner ordered a car and took it there.
The warehouse was a mammoth building about three city blocks wide. There wasn't security. He drove up and parked in the employee lot. He knocked on the locked main door, but no one answered. But this was a new life for Ladner. He'd had sex with Jerry. He'd fought with his kids. He'd told a waitress he was gay. So when he saw the open window, he climbed through with great and pleasant grunting.
The building had a utilitarian appearance. No decoration. Plaster walls. Signs pointed to the warehouses A, B, C, and D, and dorms A, B, C, and D. A reception area was center. There was only a sliding plastic barn door ahead of a low desk. He showed the man at the desk his John Doe's number. I'm looking for this employee. The woman blinked several times, and he had a feeling her eyes were cameras, relaying the employee number directly to Congo.
After a long pause, she said, He's in acquisitions, warehouse C. He followed that direction. The building was labyrinthine. Got to a door marked Acquisitions. Inside, a mammoth warehouse stocked with boxes upon boxes of goods. Employees in Congo uniforms bust around, plucking items like bees in a hive. He found the foreman, showed the number. Blinking, blinking. Wait, the foreman said. He's being hailed.
Ladner waited, waited some more. He's coming. The guy didn't answer. He was routing someone, relaying someone. A half hour later, John Doe appeared. He was green-faced, but alive, walking. This was the same man. Hi, I was your surgeon, Ladner said. You walked out of the hospital. Congo answered, monotone and dead. Thank you for saving employee 24601. Ladner noticed that beneath his tight shirt his stomach was rippling, a kind of cauldron of gas and metabolic processes in there.
But his breath was markedly slow, about six respirations per minute. Did the air directly interface with the gills? Can you turn your implant off? Do you know what happened to you? Employee 24601 must return from break. Then he began pulling back. That night, the streamies reported what Latner already knew. The sickness had dwindled, with excess deaths down to double. Still, the social networks were ablaze.
Loved ones didn't recognize one another. Friends seemed like strangers. It's the Congo update, a thread with 8 million comments insisted. It did something to us. It changed us. Parasite, he said out loud. He arranged a car to his wife's house the next day. His old house. Like all of them, the driver looked glassy-eyed and dead. The thing about glassy eyes, you assume it's calm underneath. But it occurred to Lattner that something turbulent was hiding in there. Something sentient trapped.
You can feel sentience, you know, even when it doesn't speak or hear or see. Lattner counted the driver's breaths, about six per minute. The woman at security scanned them both using retinal display. Permitted, she said in Congo's voice. Her breath was slow too. The community was unchanged from when he'd left. Green grass, freshly recycled air. People still kept dogs for pets here. They had access to enough soy to feed them.
But the dog he saw didn't appear healthy. It languished against the seesaw in the children's playground, ribs prominent. The houses were all widely separated, and two or three stories. He'd missed this place, but also felt in the six months that he'd been gone from it, that he'd stopped belonging. He used his handprint to open the door, but Lorna had changed the locks. A camera eye opened, articulated along steel tubing, and lowered itself, shining into his face with a retinal scanner.
Then the camera became a screen, and Lorna was looking back at him. She wasn't home, but at her office. She looked overwhelmed, her desk covered in paperwork. For the first time in a very long time, he felt pity and wondered, had he done this to her? What now? she asked. Are the kids home? I want to see them. It's not your day. Her voice wasn't Congo's. She wasn't wearing a headset. She was too high up, making too many decisions still. This was Lorna. Please, he said.
She looked at him with what he realized for the first time was hate. I should tell you that it wasn't fair of me to marry you, he said. I was in love with a man when I met you. I love men. Her eyes watered, but no tears fell. Her mouth gaped. Fuck you. That's not funny. He waited, knowing she'd come around in a second. You're serious? I wasn't seeing you as a person I wasn't seeing the kids as people there was something wrong with me I was afraid I've always been afraid I'm working on it
You tried. You really did. I remember that. The failure is mine. Someone else would have made you very happy. You're gay? she asked. It wasn't as simple as that. He could still have been good to her. He could still have considered her, and recognized that the life she'd tried to build with him had value. But if she liked that answer best, it seemed like a fair one. He nodded. You knew that the whole time? I don't know what I knew.
I don't think I thought that deeply. I just wanted to be settled. To do everything I was supposed to do. And now it's almost 20 years later. I wasn't living. It kept you from living. I hurt you. You're still not living. You tell yourself you're working so you can provide for the kids' futures. But the company you're working for is going to destroy that future. She made a sour face at him. Oh, fuck you, she said. Just for that, you can wait until Friday.
He tried the bell a few more times, stalked around the house, saw the nanny through the window. She was the new kind, her implants both auditory and retinal, so nervous parents could see through her eyes. The house appeared clean and tended. The windows opened for fresh fall air. The kids didn't seem to be home, or if they were home, they were in their rooms. There wasn't anything for her to do, but she was on the clock. Like a turned-off machine, she was standing in the middle of the room.
an eerie sight. As he looked at her, calling, Hey, you, through the open window, he knew she heard him, but she was receiving orders not to answer. and so her body quivered slightly, as if trying but unable to respond, a tear falling down her dead, placid cheek. As he was leaving, the skinny dog followed. It was a mutt, some kind of mix between a greyhound and pit bull. He was allergic to dogs. They gave him a rash.
He got to the car. The dog whined. Okay, he said, leaving it open for the dog to climb in. He named the dog Buster. It seemed like a dog kind of name. He walked, and when he could, and when he couldn't, left the door open for him to roam. His arms got blistery with rashes and his nose and lungs plugged up with allergies until he figured out how to divide the apartment between the two of them, keep the windows open, clean the air.
It would be temporary. He'd find someone to take the dog or return it to the village. But over the following days he found no takers. Instead, what he saw were more and more strays combing the streets in scraggly, hungry packs. Briefly, it occurred to him that he ought to let Buster join them, but Buster was a sweetie. He didn't belong with that crowd. Latner went to work all that week.
More and more, the people became the same, like zombies. Excess hospitalizations were down to zero. Everything calmed down. His fellow docs stopped taking off their headsets in the break. Sometimes he talked to them through the apparatus, and sometimes they answered in their own voices and not Kongo's, but not often. He left messages for Lorna, who wrote him a 5,000-word letter about how he'd ruined her life.
The letter didn't make a lot of sense, so he put it aside, read it again the following day after receiving it, and the day after that, until the feelings of the thing bled past its cruelty. I always hated you. I only married you because I was insane. You're weak. You're nothing. The children hate you too. You're just jealous of my success. He picked out the lines he hadn't noticed at first. Remember when we went to the state fair and you won that panda for me? Was that a lie too?
It took him a while to remember the state fair, and he had no memory of winning the panda, but he thought that it probably had not been a lie. Latner was a lot of things, but a master manipulator was not one of them. So he wrote back to her, ignoring all the cruelty. It was probably the most adult act he'd ever committed in her direction.
I want you to understand that it's not your fault. The panda was earnest. I should have visited you at the hospital. I should not have driven you to a nervous breakdown. He called Jerry too, but Jerry wasn't getting back either. So Latner wrote to him too. My whole life I've been hiding. I am a man unaccustomed to emotion, like a baby feeling joy and sorrow for the first time, and unequipped.
I cannot say I love you. I do not know you. I can say that I want desperately to see you because you make me happy. He didn't hear back from Jerry either. Meanwhile, the social networks had quieted. Most, he assumed, had been scrubbed by Congo, which owned the servers. He found a few still insisting that people had changed, not only in their behavior, but in their very anatomy. He read through these, poring over each comment from some unhinged voice in the dark.
The invasion had not come from outer space, but from within. The assertion was crazy, but looking out on the street of his apartment building, where people no longer walked after dark to head to restaurants, but instead shut down for the night, he also knew they were right. He showed up for his shift at work. No one ate much in the surgical lounge anymore, he noticed. It was all protein bars, no hot food, no coffee even. The microwave was clean for the first time in two decades.
Right before it was time to report the surgical, Ocean walked in, wearing her headset. Her eyes were wet from crying, but she wasn't moving. Just sitting very still while her body respirated six breaths per minute, and she took her appointed break. She sat on the couch beside two other nurses, all squeezing close, none talking. Their breaths and squishing pulses soon synchronized. He imagined an orchid swallowing a daisy.
He went to put on his headset, heard the soft, lulling voice. Couldn't do it. I'm sick. I'm going home, he said to Tucker, who was also on the couch, also wet-eyed and unresponsive. Was it the soul inside him crying out? Maybe Tucker heard him. Maybe he didn't. He spent days home at his apartment with Buster, alternating doom-scrolling and reading. The threads about body-snatched loved ones had dwindled, and the old ones were locked and deleted. He dove deep.
found autopsy reports, scholarly research published too quickly for peer review. Bodies all over the country had changed. What they'd gained in efficiency, they'd lost in quality. For instance, workers could now stand on assembly lines for 16-hour shifts. They rarely ate or needed bathroom breaks. However, they couldn't run. They couldn't laugh hard or cry loud either.
Their hearts couldn't beat or pump enough oxygen-rich material throughout their distal cells to allow that kind of energy expenditure. Similarly, they were much better at taking orders, but they could no longer logic. Logic and serious thought in general demanded too much energy. Friday rolled around. Jerry wasn't answering any of Lattner's messages, but at least he'd see his kid.
When they didn't show up, and neither Lorna nor Beatrice or Dylan answered any of his messages, he grabbed a ride service and headed for the gated community. The guy sitting behind the wheel was staring without blinking for so long that his eyes welled. You okay, buddy? Latner asked. The guy didn't hear him. So Lattner did something crazy, reached over and pulled off his headset. The guy didn't suddenly become alert like a spell had been broken. He face-planted into the wheel.
The car kept driving like this was irrelevant. Latner drew the headset near, heard a voice whispering softly, You're sleeping. Everyone is sleeping. The world is asleep. A voice lulled. Remember being born. Remember being unborn. Like that, Latner said, dropping the headset. The community was quiet. No kids playing ball. No cars arriving from work. No lights, he realized with surprise. All the houses were dark. The nanny answered the door, looked at him dumbly.
I'm the dad. Are the kids here? They're supposed to be at my house. She cocked her head. Let the words go to Congo. Yes, she said as she stepped back. Come in. As soon as he entered, he could see that the house was wrong. But he didn't want to admit that to himself, didn't want to notice the spoiled, sour-skinned smell.
He opened the first bedroom door. Dylan was on the floor, interfacing with his console. Didn't you hear me? Ladner asked. Always before, when he'd asked this question, he'd known the answer was yes. Dylan had been ignoring him. This time was different. Dylan was greenish, his breath slow. Ladner snapped his fingers in front of Dylan's eyes. No response. He felt his abdomen, the telltale squish squish. Do you know me? Lefner asked.
Ladner pulled the headset away. Dylan made a kind of keening animal sound. Slow, docile, he reached for the headset. Do you know your name? What's your name? Dylan looked at him blankly, the question seeming unrelated somehow to the present circumstances. He was afraid to knock on Beatrice's door, but did it anyway. Ladner wasn't sure what happened after that. There was an ambulance, a visit to the hospital. He checked Dylan, whose vitals were slow, his metabolic process about 10% normal.
A CT of his abdomen, which would have shown a new anatomy, was denied. There were dead eyes. So many dead eyes. There was a walk somehow through the city, 19 miles. He found himself back home, finishing the heart as a lonely hunter, Buster licking him. It was a comfort, but also an irritant, as his skin blistered. Lorna didn't come home. Congo's retreat turned into a five-alarm emergency. They pulled all their top executives behind a tall wall and were flying them out to a hidden shelter.
Jesus, Ladner, you're a real cocksucker saying something like that. The nanny would have called me. Those kids are fine. Listen, I gotta go, she said, when he finally tracked her down. He considered sending her a picture, something that would force her to believe, but this seemed cruel. Days passed and he didn't come out of his apartment. He read his books. He raided neighbors' strangely unlocked apartment kitchens for himself and Buster when hungry. He stared.
There ought to be a law against what had happened to his children. There ought to be something supernatural that reaches through reality and prevents such things. He forgot all about the date he'd scheduled with Jerry. But a week later, his grief lifted long enough for him to remember. He went to play it again, Sam, ordered a sandwich, asked the waitress about the VR rooms upstairs, but she told him it was closed. The demand had dropped out of the market.
The streets were empty of people as he walked to the Congo warehouse and asked for Jerry, then waited until Jerry was on a break. He knew even from the walk that this wasn't Jerry. Jerry was gone. Are you here? he asked. Jerry blinked. Let Congo answer. I appear to be. Do you know me? Your employee 5757393 from the hospital. Ladner put his hand on Jerry's shoulder.
You were the love of my life and I didn't know it. But I've never known myself very well. Jerry cocked his head, waited for Congo to translate. How nice, he said. Classified Internal Memorandum, Congo Corp. 2. Micah Peters, Congo CEO. Lorna Latner, Department of Innovation, Legal. Frank Henry, Congo Trust Reserve, Application. From Paul McKenzie, R&D, Simon Iscariot, R&D, Lucas Johnson, R&D.
to our senior officers. It appears the condition is irreversible. Non-users account for about 5% of the population. But we can make lemons out of lemonade. We've solved food scarcity. We've solved suffering. Affected citizens are still capable of reproduction. We will continue to have a thriving workforce for generations to come.
There wasn't a funeral for Beatrice. Without his consent, the nanny signed the orders to have her cremated. The ashes were divided. One half remained at the house for Lorna's eventual return, the other half to Ladner. As he held his daughter's ashes, it had occurred to him that it's awful to know that you're a speck in the grand scheme, that you did not exist for the majority of history and have no memory of this silence. that this brief stint on Earth is elite.
He thought about how children are supposed to be your legacy. His son was there, but not there. His son was gone. His whole life he'd arrived too late, if at all, for his most important thing. He tried to console himself that at least he'd shown up. I'm sorry, he said to Lorna when he finally got in touch with her. By now she believed him. The news had broken her. Her voice was cold. It's inevitable. Psychological rejection of the Congo update happens 0.01% of the time, she answered.
She was always like you. Secretive and sensitive. You'll probably do it too. On screen, Lorna appeared healthy, not affected. You knew this would happen? I can't believe that. You're telling me, but I'm still finding it hard to believe. I didn't know. They didn't know, not for sure. There was a possibility of physiological change. Someone wrote a hypothesis. But it had as much likelihood as nanobots taking over the Earth.
The hypothesis called it dissonance. The body and mind out of harmony caused a physiological response. But it makes better workers happier people. It ends crime. She looked at him pointedly. It ends attachments and pain. You don't feel bad? You don't want to try to stop it? She looked confused, as if this question bore zero significance. Lorna, he said, I love you.
I always have, not in the way I should have, but that doesn't make it any less real. Her eyes watered. For a moment she appeared to be drowning. The gravity of it all hit her, overwhelmed her. Don't say that, she whispered. Then she disconnected. Ladner spread Beatrice's ashes over the river. He wanted to cry, but the desire was like an avocado pit trapped inside his chest. It would have hurt too much to try. In the month since the update, everyone he saw had turned a shade of green.
The streets were quiet. The roads were quiet. Everything was still and dead. Like a digital recording of a movie where everything bright is softened. Everything sharp is dull. In the absence of anything else to do, he went back to work. As soon as he got to the Doc's lounge, he heard humming. He thought it was a person humming, and his eyes brimmed with emotion. Who'd have guessed that such a mundane thing could be so lovely? But then he saw that it was a console's hold music.
He thought about the heart is a lonely hunter. He thought about all humanity's cruelties, which had been outsourced now to a program. He thought about free will. We don't choose to be born. Most often we don't choose to die. He thought about the pain in his abdomen he'd been having. He thought about his dog who needed him. There was irony here that at the exact moment humanity had chosen to delete itself like an unwanted message, he'd chosen to come fully to life.
If this were Lonely Hunter, he knew how it would end. He'd notice the pain in his side. He'd notice the terrible loneliness that would be soothed or perhaps stolen by the headset he was supposed to wear right now. He would join the myriad masses and in that way reform himself, atone. More apt, he'd fill a syringe and join his daughter. He considered all this, and then he walked down the hall, his step out of synchronicity, seeing the world and the color and the sorrow of it.
thinking about all the chances he'd had in his life that it happened so often they'd felt like deja vu, thinking there had to be others like him who'd reformed too late. You have just heard Does Harlan Latner Dream of Infected Sheep? Part 2 by Sarah Langan, narrated by Stefan Rudnicki, and directed by me. Sarah Langan's a three-time Bram Stoker award-winning novelist and screenwriter whose novels A Better World, Good Neighbors, The Missing, etc.
have made best of the year lists at NPR, Newsweek, The Irish Times, AARP, and PW. Her short stories have appeared in Nightmare, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Wired, Year's Best Horror, year's best dark fantasy and horror, year's best science fiction and fantasy, etc. She has an MFA from Columbia University, an MS in Environmental Health Science and Toxicology from NYU, and lives in Los Angeles with her husband, the writer-director J.T. Petty, their two daughters, and two maniac rabbits.
Her novella, Pam Kowalski is a Monster, Raw Dog Screaming Press, and her story, Squid Teeth, Reactor, are both forthcoming May. And in 2026, Tor UK is releasing her sixth novel, Trad Wife. Stefan Rudnicki is a Grammy-winning audiobook producer and an award-winning narrator who has won 17 Audi Awards as well as more than 35 Earphones Awards and been named one of Audiophile's Golden Voices.
Steppen has been producing Lightspeed Magazine podcasts since 2010, eventually adding Nightmare and Fantasy Magazine and sharing the Hugo Awards for Best Semi-Prozine in 2014 and 2015. Welcome to Gotham, Jimmy. It's not as bad as it looks. DC and Realm present... Our vigilante, or Batman as he's called, possesses extraordinary physical skill. Batman fear I have to make them afraid Look! What the hell?
The Dark Knight's definitive DC comic stories. He's got a motorcycle. Get after him or I'll have you shot. Take him down. Adapted directly for audio for the very first time. dies. Looks like it's just you and me now, Phil Coney. Hit the floodlight. It's showtime. New episodes every Wednesday. Follow and listen wherever you get your podcasts. Batman hasn't attacked anybody. What do you mean, blow up the building? From this moment on, none of you are safe. DC High Volume. Batman. Available now.
In humanity's search for other worlds, we found something It's a massive collection of tiny pocket realities. And each one is a story. So we can actually transcend our usual four dimensions of space and time to go physically into these stories? Yes, using the MusePod. But when we explored those stories, things didn't go as planned. Subscribe and listen to Muse, the latest audio drama from Dayton Writers Movement and Realm. Long have legends inspired people the world over.
For in legends, we see the worlds of the impossible unfold before us. Horrific monsters. Gods. Magic. Tales of the Valiant and the Villainous. But more than that, in Legend, we see ourselves reflected in the stories we tell. I'm William Stark. And I'm Omar Timsa. And we are D&D Legends and Lore. Join us as we explore the fantastic lore of the world's most popular tabletop RPG. Suddenly, a beam of radiant light pierces the haze. Then a powerful angel streaks down from above.
She is pure beauty, fury, and zeal. what you are and go where you must. You can find D&D Legends and Lore on YouTube, iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere podcasts can be found. These stories were taken from the pages of Lightspeed Magazine, which is edited by John Joseph Adams. The podcast is co-produced by Stefan Rudnicki and Alison Bell-Bews at Skyboat Media. And the stories and podcast are copyright 2025. Thank you for listening.