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Ever notice how ads always pop up at the worst moments when the killer's identity is about to be revealed during that perfect meditation flow. On Amazon Music, we believe in keeping you in the moment. That's why we've got millions of ad free podcast episodes so you can stay completely immersed in every story, every reveal, every breath. Download the Amazon Music app and start listening to your favorite podcasts. Ad free included with Prime.
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Oh hey. Welcome to gift wrapping.
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Whoa.
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So is Saldana.
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Hey, can you wrap these please?
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Wow. IPhone 17s.
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You splurged at T Mobile. You can get four iPhone 17s on them. The new center Stage front camera is amazing for group selfies. It's the perfect gift for everyone.
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I'm the worst. I only got my mom a robe.
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Well, it's better than socks.
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So I have to trade in my old phone, right?
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No AT T Mobile there's no trade ins needed when you switch. Keep your old phone or give it as a gift.
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Incredible.
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In fact, wrap up my old phone too for my Aunt Rosa.
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Forget that.
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Aunt Liz will be jealous.
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Sounds like my family drama.
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Oh, I got it. I'll give it to my abuela. I'll take reindeer paper with hey, where are you going?
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To T Mobile.
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The holidays are better.
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AT T Mobile get four iPhone 17s on us. No trade in needed when you switch plus four lines for just 25 bucks a line.
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And now T Mobile is available in.
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US cellular stores with 24 monthly bill.
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Credits and four eligible board inside essentials.
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For well qualified customers.
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Bottle pay plus taxes, fees and $35 device connection charge credits ended up if.
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You pay off earlier. Cancel Contact Us Finance Agreement 256 gigabytes.
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$830 required Visit T mobile.com ESCAPE POD Episode 1020 When They Come Back By Natalia Theodoridou Flashback Friday.
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Hello folks. Welcome to EscapePod. I'm Alastair, your host and this week's story is the penultimate stop in our tour of some of the big numbers from Escape Pod's 20 year to date voyage. This one comes to us from Natalia Theodoradou and first appeared as episode five back in November 2016. Natalia is a media and theatre scholar based in the UK. She is a finalist for the 2018 World Fantasy Award for Short Fiction, an editor of Sub Q Interactive Fiction Magazine and a Clarion west graduate from the class of 2018. She has had work published in Clarksworld, Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Nightmare Fireside, Cross Genres, Interfictions, the Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women Elsewhere. Your narrator for this story is Eber Amonkas. Eber is an Emmy nominated writer producer director currently working for KLCS PBS in Los Angeles. A voracious reader who began narrating fiction podcasts nearly a decade ago, she is now one of three narrators on Inner Outer Thoughts, Caltech, NASA, JPL's first science fiction anthology. In her free time she's learning to make neon signs and getting way too into hockey. So change is constant. Who will you be when you return? Because you will return and so will story time.
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When they come back. They were called Maria and Michael and Siobhan, George, Elise and Sarah and Violet, Daisy, Jasmine, Rose. No, perhaps these were not people names. These were flower names, weren't they? And Gabriel, Raphael, Bacchus, Athena, IO, Muhammad. But these were mythical names and God names and prophet names. So hard to tell them apart after all these years. After the all these years after they and Natalie, Vasilia, Dimitri, Ousmane the angel is rotting. He's leaning against the trunk of an olive tree. I examine his body but avoid his eyes as always, just in case. I would have liked to have been a man, he'd said once, so I always think of him as one, no matter what his body looks like today. He has a mane of dark curls that reach all the way down to the roots of his wings. No beard, no breasts. No hair on his body except a little around his crotch. His skin has turned the color of a fresh bruise. It won't be long. What will it be like when they come back? I start our little game, our ritual of remembering and bonding and hoping. Or at least that's what it used to be. I check myself in the time it takes him to reply. Skin a little dry. Suboptimal heart mech optimal brain mechanical. Suboptimal Energy levels as good as can be hoped. Under the sky. I move my limbs one by one, and they respond with a low whirr. My hands feel especially stiff. I haven't touched anyone, anything for so long. Nothing to be done about that. He stirs. His voice sounds as if it's coming from behind a stormy cloud or from the dark bottom of a lake. When he comes back, I will be waiting for him in the kitchen of his old home. I will be sitting on top of his cupboards like a bird or a gargoyle, and so I will be looking at him from above. He will walk in through the front door. The angel pauses and licks his lips. His clothes are dusty. His footsteps leave behind small piles of dirt. He doesn't see Me at first. He suddenly turns to look at me and I avert my eyes just in time. A city is smoking in the distance. We always avoid cities. They crucify angels in cities. My kind do. Then he feels me watching over him. He continues. He raises his eyes to look at me, so I storm down and wrap myself around him. You are back, I say. And he is mine to protect. And so I breathe him in as deeply as I can. He smells of earth and humanity. The angel inhales slowly, as if he can still smell his human. Then I make him some tea. Tea, really? I say, studying the black smoke that is rising over the horizon. I wonder what they are burning this time. He really liked tea. He laughs softly. It sounds like dry leaves being crushed under a human heel. How does he not turn to stone when he looks at you? His laugh fades. Crushed leaves blown away. I didn't have to be so cruel. Because this is a fantasy, he says, poking at a rib that juts through his rotting flesh. Because they are never coming back. Few things are more doleful than a broken angel. Angelos, the bearer of news. What news is there to bear anymore? I'm sorry, I say. He waves my apology away. You don't believe the rumors, then? No. I knew that already. But we're going anyway. Yes, he says. At least I am. You don't have to come. I know. But I'm coming. He nods. I keep my eyes on the smoke, but I feel him looking at me, straight at me. I think he is smiling. What wouldn't I give to see an angel smile. And Constantinos, Eugenia, Iu made and Ketot, Jiwon, Tyreese, Desiree, Christina and Marisia and Marlenia and Trevon and Carissa. We walk by night, not that it matters. Angels don't need eyes to see, and my kind are just fine in low light. But it's easier to pretend in the dark, easier to make up stories in the dark. The sky looks brown and dirty. I call up images of what it used to look like when they were around, to remind myself. Blue, black, and magnificent. We need to cross an ancient forest in order to bypass the city. We walk past the dry, disfigured branches and I find myself wondering if these were really ever trees. I open my mouth to ask him, but my feet stumble on a small rock on the ground. I stop to pick it up. It feels strangely warm in my palm. I contemplate putting it in my rucksack, taking it with me, but I don't. Are you an angel? I whisper. To it. And George and Valpona and Alexandra and Chantal. Chantal? Chantal? Chantal meant stone. The angel starts shedding small pieces of his flesh behind him as the decomposition advances. I can't bear to look at them. Let me walk in front of you, I tell him. He stops. I'm tired, he says. I know. As I walk past him, I think of putting a hand on his shoulder, but I hesitate, afraid my touch might damage him further. Just let yourself go, I say. Change. I can't. We need to keep going, get to that place. You said you didn't believe the rumors. You said they are never coming back, and you are right. It's absurd. How could a human be alive after all this time? Least of all a child. He doesn't reply. Just let go, I say, and start walking again. I listen for his footsteps behind me, feeling for the tiny changes in his body, the sound of feathers falling, of curls growing thin and dull. It won't be long. There's a clamor near the edge of the forest, a fire Android shouting something, crying out in pain. I shove the angel behind a tree and he yelps. Be quiet, I whisper. Shreds of his skin have stuck to my palms where I touched him. They smell putrid. I peek around the trunk. There is a group of my kind, five in total, all of them with heavy mods. The one who seems to be their leader has replaced her arms with broad steel blades, but has kept her female interface. Her skin has been removed in an intricate design along her torso, exposing the mechanical parts underneath. There is one with a head that looks like a bird, another one, a jackal. Anything to dilute the human resemblance? Don't look it in the eye, the jackal one shouts. Have they tried it, then? Do they know what happens? They have surrounded a small angel that has the hind legs of a deer. They probably caught it mid change. The leader is slicing its wings off little by little as it doesn't have enough flesh left on it to crucify. They are taking their time with it. My angel whimpers behind me. I can feel it, he says. That small one, the dear legged one. His eyes are shut tight so I can look at his face, his grey skin taut over his cheekbones like a drum. A thought blooms in me. If I strike you, what will you sound like? Make them stop, he pleads. I can't, I say. There are too many and heavily armed. You need to change now. No. He opens his eyes and I hurry to look away. Change. I cry, loud enough to let the androids hear me? That should do it. And it does. There's a shushing from their direction, then quiet. You didn't have to do this, he says. But then at last he lets go. He dissolves slowly, melting away before my eyes. His features fade, his body dissipates and his wings drip, drip, drip into puddles of clear water on the ground. I fall to my knees and bring handfuls of the liquid to my lips, drinking him, then lapping up the water straight from the ground to take with me as much of him as possible before the soil absorbs him completely. I stop and dry my lips just as the Android leader comes and stands tall before me. What are you doing, sister? She asks. I make myself look surprised. I'm on my way to the city, I say. I am joining a group of hunters there. This is risky. I'm hoping this city is disorganized enough to hold multiple groups of different allegiances. A group of hunters. Is that so? I stopped here to rest. You can rest with us, she says. I stand up and nod. Thank you, I say. What's your name? I don't have one. What should we call you then? Call me Chantelle, I almost say, but that would give me away. The sentimentality of it, the nostalgia. Call me Drifter, I say. The deer legged angel looks even more miserable up close than I expected. They put a blindfold over its eyes, a precaution. We've all heard of androids that turned to stone when they looked an angel in the eye. Just like humans used to back then. Rumors. A lot of that going around. Doesn't mean it's true. I sit by the fire next to the jackal headed one. I stare at the pit, an open mouth gobbling up dead branches. A fire, I say. Why? The jackal eyes fix on me, a cold dark stare mixed with fear and longing. What does my face look like to a jackal? To burn it. There's not enough of it left to do anything else with a pause, a suspicion. They are all staring at me now. You don't approve? The leader asks. I feel the water move inside of me, a mighty pulse that presses on my vocal membranes and pushes, pushes, pushes me to scream. I hold it in. Of course I do, I say. Removes unnecessary waste if you ask me. That seems to satisfy them. We throw the dear thing in the fire and watch it be reduced to nothing. I wonder if it will come back. Can ashes be an angel again? Can water? I bid them farewell and pretend to walk purposefully towards the city. I feel the jackal eyes and the bird eyes and the woman eyes track me. Or maybe it's just my faulty brain mech that imagines it. Either way, I'll wait until I've put enough distance between myself and them before collapsing to the ground. I put my hand deep into my mouth and press on the back of my tongue, reaching for my gag reflex. I try to wretch him up, the angel, all of him. I end up with a small puddle by my palms. I roll over and let my body stretch out, my back to the ground, and I wait. Night falls and morning comes again and the puddle has disappeared into the dust. Only a faint moist shadow remains where I threw him up. Have I lost you, angel? Will you come back? I ask. My question floats in the morning chill, unanswered. Chantal. It means stone. The recitation flashes in my brain mech expected and regular like an internal clock. The names, the memory of the names is a bright blinding sun and eye, a planet going round and round and round. George and Colette. Maya and Raman. Irma and Chantal. Chantal, Chantal. When he comes back, his body reminds me of my human lover, strong and beautiful, her lips, her breasts, her dick. He comes close, presses this body against mine. He lets me blindfold him and run my hands the length of his new flesh. It feels oddly familiar but for the wings. Our bodies don't fit together in the ways I used to fit with my lover, our love making us awkward and sad like morning. Afterwards, I fall asleep in his arms and dream myself flat, chested and named after my love. I am glad you came back, I say, while he tries on different shapes by which to remember the humans. He doesn't say anything, so I start the game again, even though it's not my turn to ask. What will it be like when they come back? When he speaks, his skin is dark, his hair white and long like a crone's. He keeps Chantal's shape, though. When they come back, they will be children, he says. Children, I echo. When the children come back, we will rejoice. They will speak with prophecies and dreams and words as opaque as stones. They will say there is another world beyond this one, where one is who they truly are. There is another world where stones speak and trees uproot themselves and walk. If you ask them in the right way, they will take us by the hand and lead us to the threshold of this other world. Come, they'll say. We'll show you and we shall go. Smiling and terrified, we walk for days. The angel's not visibly rotting anymore. His flesh looks firm, full of life. This will not last. One day I'll see Chantal's remembrance disintegrate again before my eyes. Will I bear to watch this? Or will I break? What can break me? After all this time, we come to a shore in the middle of a desert. Is this a sea? I ask, unable to find any mention of this body of water in the old maps. Is it a lake? What is this? He stands next to me for a moment and then he takes a few steps. His bare feet touch the edge of the water. He closes his eyes and tilts his head back slightly, as if trying to listen. I try to listen too. I hear nothing. The this is angels, he says. Thousands upon thousands of angels. We're here. Then they should be here. The human. Yeah. Yes. Let's walk further in. I take a tentative step into the water. It feels like normal water, lukewarm and light. He doesn't move. Come on, I say. I can't. I hear them, their memories, their losses, their forgetfulness. I can't. I take his hand in mine. Come on, I say. Close your eyes, coaxing him like a small, frightened animal. He follows me through the shallow water. We walk for miles and yet it doesn't get any deeper. What if this is all there is? What if this goes on forever, till the end of the world? At my side I hear the drip, drip, drip of my angel forgetting himself. All those pieces of himself he's left behind. All this flesh and the feathers and the curls. What were they? Was that him, this chantel shaped figure walking next to me? Is that all of him? Or is this all that's left? Not even his own memories anymore, but mine. I squeeze his hand. What will it be like when they come back? I ask. But my voice echoes alone once more, like a stone skipping on water. A day and a night later we come across a tall silver cross in the water. On it spread out an angel, half man, half book, reading itself, as in the ancient story of Dinamukt. I open my mouth to speak, but stop. How does one greet another in this world? I won't hurt you, I say. You can't hurt me, dhinamukta replies. I nod. What is this? I ask, waving a hand over the expanse of water around us. What happened? Did my kind do this? Your kind did some of this. The rest we did ourselves, when we allowed ourselves to forget. He turns a page of himself and reads. I have seen angels cut the flesh off their sides and chests and bellies with knives and throw it into their mouths. I have seen them hit their heads with stones and cry out with the voices of beasts. I have seen them cut their wings off with scissors and throw them in the fire. Why did they come here? The rumor. They heard there was a human here. Some said it was a child, some a grown woman, some neither of those. Drip, drip, drip. My angel starts walking off on his own. He doesn't speak, doesn't look back. Was there? I ask. No. I kneel close to the water. I take a handful and bring it to my lips. I sip, then wash my face, letting it drip on my bare chest, my belly, my legs. There is nothing else to say. I leave Dinamukt behind, turning his pages, and I wade through the water to catch up with my angel. I'm sorry, I tell him. I am too, he says. We decide to walk as far as we can. A few days later we arrive at the edge of a cliff. The water slides peacefully off to the side. Angels in a quiet waterfall. I'm tired, I say. You don't get tired, he replies. I know. But I am. We stand for a while without speaking. The recitation flashes awake inside of me. They were called Maria and Michael and Natalie, George, Elise and Sarah and Violet, Daisy, Jasmine, Rose. They were called Flowers and prophets and stones. Stones, stones. Do you want to jump? He asks. I can't, I say. I'd break. I can't hurt myself. He nods. He understands. He is going to fall anyway. Bind my wings, he says, and tie a cloth over my eyes. I do as he asks. I tie a piece of rope tightly around his torso, but I don't blindfold him. There's nothing to put over your eyes. I lie and he knows it. Good bye, he says before he jumps. I've made up my mind to stay here for a while. The void calls Shantal. Chantal. Chantal. It tugs at my hartmech day and night. But I can't answer. The angel lies at the bottom of the cliff. His form is losing its shape, slowly fading into the ground. What will it be like when they come back? I hear him ask, or think I do. Why don't I play? Why have I resisted playing for so long? It will be wonderful, I whisper. The most wonderful thing in the world. I check myself. Skin optimal. Heart Mech optimal. Brain mechanical suboptimal energy levels as good as can be hoped. I will be here for a while. I lean as far over the edge as my self preservation allows. I comfort myself with the low whirr of my wrists. My angel is forgoing his definitions. I make out an arm here, a foot there, the curve of a shoulder, the outlines of a face. I search for his eyes and I brace, wishing for the stone under my skin.
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There is so much I love about this story, and I would encourage you to listen to the original episode for Tina's closing commentary, because it and Natalia's authorial comments threw the story into a very different focus. For me, the two concepts that really unlocked things were Natalia's idea that the story is about fluidity of identity and genre, and this line from Tina. We only see the tip of the iceberg, but the rest of the iceberg is there. Exactly. Exactly. Art is Mercury temporarily held as a mirror. It changes constantly and it reminds us we choose change constantly too. The example I've used a lot in the past is my relationship with blade runner. Aged 12, I hated it because it was always nighttime and nothing happened. Aged 18, memories of Green played in my head constantly, and I considered learning how to make arakami unicorns. Aged 49 and pleasingly stunned, I'm still here to be that number. It's a multifaceted tragedy and rebellion about a trained killer realising he can and has the moral authority to be literally anything else. It's a shame they won't live. Gaff yells. But then again, who does? And the answer that Natalia Theodoradou finds here is simple and awe inspiring in simplicity and scope and potential. And that answer is all of us. For me, this is a story about the idea of being haunted by the ghosts of the past and the ghost of a species. As Tina discusses, the androids and angels have set patterns they explore and carry out again and again, but they do so with self awareness. This is ritual, but it's also processing. This is moving through life as trying to solve a puzzle, trying to return to a world they have the dimmest memory of. Viewed through the lens of 2025, that idea of trying to go back to the future, albeit without Christopher Lloyd and Michael J. Fox's aid, gives the story a much darker tone. If you want it to. We live in an enforced landscape of toxic nostalgia where a past that wasn't that great to begin with is worshipped by people so scared of change they would rather generate dismal, empty AI ghosts of the idea of a time they were not alive for, than accept the vibrant and diverse nature of the world that they do live in. In that regard, the angels and androids have a much healthier view of life than a lot of us. They are, to borrow that David Bowie quote, I love yet again, quite aware of what they're going through and want one day somehow to stop to change. That desire is the key in the lock, and turning the key takes a while, but we all get there eventually. Everything changes, everything is fluid, as Deodora do says. And to borrow one more line from a different source, the 21st century is where everything changes. Let's be ready together. Angels Androids, you and me. Great work folks. Thank you so much. We just rolled our ads. Don't worry, there will be no mid roll, but we're doing ads at the top and bottom of each show. We also now have an ad free tier on our Patreon that costs seven bucks a month and that will give you access to our feeds all the way back to the start as well. So if you want to go ad free, go to the Patreon and sign up. And if you can't subscribe, we still need and welcome very much one time donations. Ads are there to help, but the primary engine is still and always will be you. Subscribing helps individual donations help and if there's a method of support we don't do but that you would like, reach out to us@donationsscapeartists.net, we would love to hear about it. If you can't afford to support us financially, then please consider leaving reviews of our episodes or generally talking about them on whichever form of social media you're attempting to rip through the multiverse on this week. We now have a bluesky account and we would love to see you there. Find us@escapepod.org if you like merch. You can also support us by buying hoodies, T shirts, and other bits and pieces from the Escape Artist Void Merch Store. The link is in various places, including our pinned post over on bluesky. Regardless of what you do, thank you. Escape Pod is part of the Escape artists Foundation, a 501c3 non profit and this episode is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution Non commercial no derivatives 4.0 international license. Download and listen to the episode on any device you like, but don't change it and please don't sell it. Theme music is by permission of Daikaiju. We'll see you next week for more story time. We leave you this week with this quote from the Magnificent Elbow all the fallen angels roosting in their space. Count back the weeks on worried fingers. Virgin Mother, what's her face? We'll see you next week folks. Until then, have fun.
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