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Hello and welcome to meet this pod episode 10. I'm your host de

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Mitas. Our story for this episode comes to us from Alex

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Schwartzman. Alex is a writer, translator and indologist from

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Brooklyn, New York. Over 100 of his short stories have appeared

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in nature analog, strange horizons, intergalactic medicine

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show and many other magazines and anthologies. He won the 2014

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W SFA small press award for short fiction, and was a two

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time finalist for the Canopus Award for Excellence and

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Interstellar fiction 2015 and 2017. He's the editor of the

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other notified funny objects annual anthology series for

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humorous science fiction and fantasy, and of future science

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fiction digest. His epic fantasy novel or Adonis crown was

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published in October of 2019. His website is www dot Alex

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schwartzman.com. There are links to Alex's site and where to buy

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her Danny's crown in the show notes. Without further ado, the

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law cars fortune by Alex Schwartzman.

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Who Nothi is making house calls thank you for coming lekar the

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man's voice is both tired and hopeful. The lecarre notes the

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cheaply made furniture and bare walls of the small home. A woman

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sits on the couch her eyes red and puffy. She stares into space

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and makes no move to acknowledge you Nothi. Her husband looks

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grim and determined his hands tremble slightly, as he offers

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her a bundle of bank notes. Who Nothi glances at the notes. It

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isn't much but there is more than one way to pay for her

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services. You understand how this works? Who not the asks.

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Both of them nod. Neither will look her in the eye nor each

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other. Lead me to him. She says the man shows her to the next

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room where a four year old boy is lying in bed and healthy,

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walks in and shakes her head when the father tries to follow.

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She shuts the door behind her. The boy is burning up with

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fever. She lives her hands on the child's forehead and focuses

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on his illness. It's merely pneumonia, and disease that

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should have been treated with herbs and mixtures instead of

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magic. The family was too lacks or too poor to seek such

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treatment in time. The sickness lingered and grew. It had taken

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firm hold of the child's lungs. It's too late for the healer.

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She realizes as she studies his small sweat drenched frame.

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without her help. The child will be dead within a day. No Nothi

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closes her eyes and readies herself. She focuses on the

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prison in her mind which holds 1000 deaths. She wills the

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tiniest opening into existence taking great care not to permit

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any of her wards to escape. She begins to hum softly using her

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magic to draw the pneumonia out of the boy. She traps the malady

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contains it within a mental cell. A few minutes later, the

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boy's fever is gone. His breathing steady. The lecarre

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feels bloated like a balloon overfilled with water, stretched

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to its limits and ready to burst. She exhale slowly forces

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herself to focus again and begins humming a different tune.

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She grabs hold of another sickness, one that is more

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potent, more dangerous. One that takes up far more space and her

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prison. She pours it into the boy she feels instantly lighter,

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as if an enormous pressure is lifted off her temples. The

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malignant tumor she expelled had been a challenging prisoner to

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contain a burden that required vigilance and fortitude. One

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that she bore for far too long. It Nestle's in the child's brain

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now. Bonatti exits of the room without looking at the boy

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again. I bought you a decade. She tells the father perhaps

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longer then he will need another lacquer. But she knows that this

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family will never save up enough to pay for a lecturer to take on

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this tumor by the time it is fully grown. The man Thanks for

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profusely but his wife stares daggers that do not be until

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finally she can hold Back no more doubt. She's tells her

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husband don't thank her. The witch has done us no favors.

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When off he has heard it all before, but she can't help

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responding. Your son will live longer. He has a chance now.

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Without my ministrations he would have had none. The woman's

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tears are directly in the eye. Your user is merchant, not a

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healer. You tray death for worse death and profit from the

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exchange. I don't know how you let us live with yourself. Then

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she spits on the ground that do not these feet. Do not the

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pities the woman's lack of facility for logic. This forlorn

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creature knows nothing of the burden she bears of the strain

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of containing so many deaths for so long. She thinks back to her

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years of training. To her mentors patient guidance, it

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takes a special mind to become a lecarre a special strength. His

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words reassure her just as they did back when he lived. Without

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another word she turns to leave. The father trails her tries to

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apologize for his wife's discourtesy, who Nothi ignores

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him and walks away. Back in her home, or not the gradually releases the pneumonia

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into her own body. Her adult immune system would be able to

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handle it, and she cannot afford to hang on to every sickness she

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captures. Her prison is nearly full as it is replete with much

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worse things. It isn't often that she can unburden herself

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the way she did with the tumor. And even with it gone, she can

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feel the rest of her deaths constantly pushing probing

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against her prisons walls. Four days later, she is coughing,

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nauseous and feverish. When her Stewart arrives with news go

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away, she croaks I won't see any clients but another week. This

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can't wait insists I found a vessel. The news Joel to Nothi.

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If true, this is a rare once in a lifetime find. A vessel is a

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healthy body of someone with a talent for magic, which also

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lacks a conscious mind. Her mentor searched desperately for

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one late in life when he felt himself becoming too weak to

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contain his captive deaths, but didn't succeed. The steward who

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served her mentor before her was well trained to never see

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searching. She has to hurry before the other lecarre is to

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find out about the vessel to some would spend all their

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treasure to possess such a prize. Who not the chance to

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pneumonia back into her mental sell. She needs to be in her

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best form for this. She arrives at a house in the prosperous

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part of town and she is ushered to a young woman's bedside. The

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girl fell in her temple on a sharp edge or so her widowed

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father claims there are telltale signs that insinuate a different

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story. Her body is perfectly healthy though. Besides a few

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bruises, her mind is gone. She will never wake up from a coma.

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Oh, nothing can sense the magic within the girl. She is indeed a

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vessel. The greatest fortune immature lecarre could hope to

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possess. What's more, the father eager to keep the circumstances

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of the girls injuries discreet demands only a small fortune.

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The word of the vessel hasn't spread sparing or Nothi the

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necessity for a bidding war against other like ours. She

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hands over the money and is alone with the vessel at last.

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The girls magic is strong. It takes a special mind to become a

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car. Had things turned out differently. She could have made

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a fine one. And healthy wonders briefly if her magic could

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overcome the girl's death wake her from the coma. But even

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attempting this would be ludicrous, akin to a diver using

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a mallet to shatter the finest largest Pearl she found in her

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lifetime just to learn if it would break. Who not the places

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her hands on the vessels warm forehead and opens the gates of

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her prison wider than ever before. She chants cancers and

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plagues heart disease and stroke schizophrenia and smallpox pour

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into the vessel until for the first was time in decades, who

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northeast prison is vacant. The lecarre staggers out of the

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house lightheaded and weak. She can't think can't focus. Is this

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what she's supposed to feel like? She lets a steward help

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her into the carriage and drive her home. Moments after she

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crawls into her bed and permits herself to lower her eyelids.

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Sleep claims her. In the morning, she wakes with a

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feeling of anguish, guilt and revulsion of the things she's

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done the way she is, her calling as a car hit her all at once.

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She has never felt this way. Not before her apprenticeship to

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become a car nor sense. It is infinitely worse than corralling

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a multitude of deaths within her mind, and she can't bear it. And

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Aarthi remembers with perfect clarity, her calm demeanor, her

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ability to survive and even flourish. While plying her

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trade. The detached clinical manner, she can no longer muster

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and takes a special mind to become a car but perhaps what

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makes it special is a flaw rather than a gift.

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She comes to believe that whatever depression or mental

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block had allowed her to function must have somehow been

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poured into the vessel, along with all the other sickness.

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Whatever thing made her broken and allowed her to live with

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herself. She must have it back. She rushes over to the vessels

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home but she's too late. The young woman passed away

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overnight extinguished by one of the many deaths meant for

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others. The body has already been burned. And Aarthi leaves

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the vessels home and stark and Windows staring at her with

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cincher. She picks up the bass as she struggles to cope with

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the guilt in her heart. The weight of decisions she made

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feeling much heavier than her mind's prison ever had. Her feet

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hit the cobblestones faster until she was running down the

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streets of her city. eyes stung by sweat her lungs burning in

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agony. She is an expert click are able to capture any sickness

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contain any disease, but she doesn't know how to outrun her

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humanity meet a spot is always looking for great stories with some

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fantastical element. Check out the Submissions page over at

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Metis pod.com/submissions. And where did working on some fun

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stuff for the show and the community surrounding it. So

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stay tuned and remember to rate and review and share the show

13:08

all around. The music you're hearing is into the unknown by

13:12

odd Sprite. More of odd sprites work can be found at odd

13:15

sprite.com links in the show notes midis pod is released

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under Creative Commons Attribution non commercial no

13:23

derivatives license. That means share it all you like just don't

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change it or sell it. We'll see you next time folks. Have a good

13:32

one.