Original Science Fiction - Makeshift Stories
by Vern Hume
Makeshift Stories is an indie sci-fi, fantasy, and speculative fiction podcast. Each month, journey with us through uncharted futures, strange realities, and rebellious technologies. Let your imagination soar and discover what tomorrow might bring.
Episodes
-
The Hacking of a Lonely Heart (Part 2)
Authorities tie RZ to Rhonda’s alias and begin to move in. However, she refuses to leave without helping Gene escape financial ruin caused by Doctor Reid, a virtual online therapist program that has been conning him out of his money. She decides to take down Net Wellness by exposing the company's...
-
The Hacking of a Lonely Heart (Part 1)
Thirty-five years after fleeing Cascadia, infamous hacktivist Rhonda—RZ—returns to New Vancouver when her former lover, Gene, begins spending his savings on treatments recommended by an online therapist. Gene insists Doctor Reid understands him better than anyone ever has. Rhonda suspects...
-
Virtue Deprecated
At an exclusive island retreat for billionaires, celebrities, and politicians, Rani watches his lifelong friend Arjun get pulled into a universe where money erases limits—and other people’s problems become someone else’s responsibility. When the brain interface Arjun has designed for him…
more -
The Tenacity Hack
Kenzo, a former corporate IP enforcer, is hiding from his old employers by working on a remote farm. When Janet X, who owns the farm, gets a patent-infringement threat about crops she insists are legal, Kenzo steps in to help. At first, it seems like a typical patent troll case, but Kenzo catches...
-
Good Bot
During a deadly heat wave, unwilling to abandon his aging collie or give up his independence, 80-year-old Ryker refuses to leave his subsidized apartment. He soon becomes delirious from dehydration and heat, hallucinating that he is alone on a doomed alien world with a loyal robot. But when he...
-
There Are No Aliens
Aurora attends a remote conference to research fringe beliefs in aliens and UAPs for an article she is writing. She meets a provocative neuroscientist, Doctor Tracey Bukowski, whose theories link universal consciousness to unexplained phenomena. Aurora finds Bukowski’s ideas crazy, but after a…
more -
The Meatspace Hire (Part 2)
Renata’s trail leads Matteo to an automated distribution centre, where he uncovers proof that a false insurance claim is a cover for a larger fraud involving relabelled memory modules and corrupted AI hardware. Matteo finds Renata alive but ends up trapped, forced to choose between escape and...
-
Threat Machine
With an early snow threatening to destroy her first good crop in years, Harper’s combine breaks down. When the dealer can’t fix it in a timely manner, she is forced to take matters into her own hands and get her neighbour to repair a broken belt. But when a software update detects the…
more -
The Meatspace Hire (Part 1)
Matteo works as a consultant for wealthy collectors, authenticating their purchases to ensure they are not AI-manufactured fakes, until his sister Renata vanishes after sending him a cryptic message concerning a fake insurance claim. After the authorities refuse to investigate, he is forced into...
-
A Solution, Not a Cure
While on holiday, Lena shows Erin an old photo of a woman who looks exactly like her. Initially, Erin dismisses the resemblance. However, when Lena reveals she is dying of cancer, Erin admits that it is her and that there are other historical images of her. She confesses that as a result of a...
-
The Happiness Variant
Hana Grabowski, a genetic engineer with a failing gene-mod business, takes a secretive contract to restore humanity’s appetite for impulsive behaviour. When her staff threatens to revolt, she uses a variant to alter their attitude. However, the mosquitoes she uses to infect them escape…
more -
The Vedika Ray File
Nora, a scientist’s daughter, enlists true-crime host Alan Humphrey to solve the disappearance of her mother’s “deathbot.” At first, Humphrey is reluctant to take the job, but he can not resist the mystery. The clues soon take Humphrey from New Yellowknife to Uranium City, a defunct mining town....
-
The Klotho Factor
Kenzo Tanaka, a washed-up intellectual property rights enforcer turned PI, takes a “lost dog” case from a woman he believes to be a dazzling biotech heiress. However, he soon discovers that the dog is a human-canine chimera growing a life-extending Klotho gland, which is highly illegal. His...
-
316 Builder of Monsters
In exchange for the chance to reunite with his family, roboticist Sebit Deng has spent years on an isolated island in the South Pacific, building an android clone for aging industrialist Gregory Vance. As Vance approaches death, Sebit rushes to complete the transfer, only to discover that the...
-
Senescence (Part 2)
When Surya, a hardware engineer, buys an old NASA computer at a garage sale, she uncovers lost Voyager 2 data. She tracks down a retired scientist named in the file, who claims the data indicates a killing wave of cosmic radiation is headed for Earth. As she and the old scientist race to confirm...
-
Senescence (Part 1)
Surya, a tech historian, buys an old Sun workstation at a garage sale, expecting a working example of a CPU her grandmother designed, not secrets. Accidentally left on the drive are two files of NASA’s lost Voyager 2 data. When she attempts to learn about the workstation’s history by contacting a...
-
Solitude of the Deep Dark
During a dive to repair a submersible mining robot, Rohan, a deep-sea specialist, discovers the true cause of the machine's malfunction: the metallic nodules it was harvesting are alive, ancient, and lying in wait. Too late, Rohan realizes that they can hijack his mind and body. Trapped within...
-
From Wonder Valley to Nowhere
Forced into Wonder Valley, a holding facility for seniors needing care, 83-year-old Ellie resists her cheerful AI handlers and their synthetic paradise. She finds solace in the company of Aura, an aging, fuzzy robot dog who has developed more empathy than its creators intended. Over time, their...
-
Anima Incognita
After living off-grid for forty years, Shane is drawn back into society when his former best friend—now the political leader of the territory—announces plans to develop the wilderness area that Shane calls home. While watching the announcement, Shane realizes that Gabriel isn't the person he once...
-
No I in AI
Salvini, an out-of-work programmer, uses a hidden backdoor in her former employer's system to create an AI called Bandhu, which hunts for jobs and outsmarts the hiring platforms. She asks it to find a position that won't be replaced by AI, and when it finally delivers a job as a remote robotics...
-
Utopia Base
Faraday and Quinn arrive at a remote mining site on the far side of the moon that supplies helium-3 to Utopia Base, where they have lived their entire lives believing the Earth has been devastated. Faraday soon realizes that she has forgotten her supply of a medication called Sustain, which...
-
Personal Detritus
Liam, a laid-off tech worker turned scavenger, lives a double life—by day, a conscripted worker in a waste recycling plant; by night, Rupert Hudson, a venture capitalist, mingling with the elite using forged credit cards. When he retrieves a careless billionaire’s trash and uses it to access vast...
-
Scissors Paper Rock App Computer
At 75, Kaber Grewal should be retired in the sun, not taking gigs to pay for his hip replacement. Hired by a mysterious client to analyze communications, he uncovers signs of cognitive decline in Praeses, the AGI running the government. He is paid well for his time but warned to forget what he...
-
A New Star in Aries
Professor Hollis Cooper, an underground scientist, must pass a daily test to prove her belief in the official facts. But she comes under investigation when she accidentally slips up in a lecture. Official interest in her couldn’t come at a worse time, as Hollis and a colleague, using banned...
-
Floor Forty-two
During a routine license audit at a vertical farm, Carmen, a demoted field agent, discovers that the farmhands, including a man named Salvador, are genetically modified and memory-altered slaves. Carmen risks her job and her life to expose the illegal operation. In an unexpected twist, when…
more -
The Forever Worm
After a long shift ice mining in Saturn’s rings, Pascoe heads for a drink and the company of fresh faces at the Methane Bar on Titan. When he arrives, the bar is deserted except for Allgera, a recluse, who is, after years of silence, ready to share her alluring secret—immortality. As Pascoe is...
-
Reality Adjustment (Part 2)
Nickie and her cousin Noah stumble upon a mystery as they plan an adjustment for the Primate Council; someone appears to be following them. The mysterious person turns out to be a childhood friend who reveals their roles as adjusters, make them targets of the Council. In a desperate attempt to...
-
Reality Adjustment (Part 1)
Nickie Holmes is the best Adjuster in the business, erasing anomalies to align the physical world with the Primate Council’s official digital record. After a Forget injection wipes her memory of the last job, she takes on a new assignment with her cousin Noah, targeting a house, a store, and a…
more -
Return of the Sovereign
After a century on Mars, crypto-trillionaire Devon Smit decides to return to Earth. He wants to be a god among the human masses, which he and his fellow elite left behind, to escape society's downfall and impending environmental collapse. His obsession with gaining godlike status blinds him to…
more -
An Alien Mind
When Dr. Veda Singh arrives at a mining camp to fix the mysterious loss of communications with an AI studying a 12,000-year-old Aspen colony, malfunctioning automated mining machinery and unexplained network activity initially point to a sinister third party. However, working with Nolan Myers, a...
-
Escape Across the 60th
Dr. Tremblay, a geneticist, is forced to run after attempting to give away his Alzheimer's cure against his employer’s wishes. To evade the private security company sent to stop him, he fights for survival as he navigates a dangerous river to seek asylum in the Arctic Alliance. An unexpected...
-
Manufactured Memory
Ivan Petrenko has spent his entire life chasing one goal: proving his family’s abduction by extraterrestrials during a 1960 camping trip. When he is contacted by Marie, the daughter of a former researcher involved in the Cold War's top-secret MK Ultra project, he agrees to a meeting. However…
more -
Aurora’s Self-serve Medical Shop
Aurora Kumar struggles to make ends meet, running her family's self-serve medical shop in a down-and-out neighbourhood. She must rent private medical suites to premium clients to balance her family's history of charity with the survival of her business. Aurora becomes suspicious of one of those...
-
Robin Hood Mode (Part 2)
When Noah, Wil, and the woman who hired Noah attempt to track down the mysterious mastermind behind high-stakes money transfers, they find themselves up against a software agent called Little John. After escaping a trap, the program set for them, Wil devises a plan to figure out who or what is...
-
Robin Hood Mode
Noah, an elderly gig worker, takes on a lucrative job from a wealthy woman claiming to be giving away her fortune against her family's wishes. After a successful first job, things look up for Noah, and then a private investigator shows up at his apartment and asks questions. As the truth about…
more -
Elixir of Youth
Dakari, an 11-year-old boy, exchanges his blood with an aging billionaire to extend the older man's life. Promised a better future for his family, Dakari feels a deep sense of betrayal as he becomes increasingly disillusioned with the grim reality of his sacrifice. When he uncovers the treatments...
-
Lagrange Point 4
An astrophysicist is blackmailed into joining billionaire space entrepreneur Dev Chada on a mission to investigate a mysterious anomaly at Lagrange Point 4. As their spaceship, the Mangala, ventures further from Earth, tensions rise when sabotage threatens their journey. This reveals deep-rooted...
-
Leopold’s Fix All
Leopold clings to the remnants of a bygone era where things could be fixed. His latest find, an old slide projector, holds more than nostalgic value—it harbors a dark secret. As Leopold restores the vintage device, he unknowingly unleashes a trapped soul from the past, bound by a sinister deal....
-
The Wind Rustlers
Beau, a drifter and private investigator, finds himself stranded in the middle of nowhere. To make enough money to leave, he must solve a mysterious series of power thefts at a struggling wind farm. As he delves into the heart of Wind Ridge Ranch, he unearths a truth the owner does not want to...
-
The Genetic Forest
While searching for her missing dog bot, Loki, Mary discovers fugitive geneticist Ethan camping in a restricted toxic reclamation area. After admitting to disabling Loki, he reveals he has a cure for Alzheimer's and is fleeing a corporation determined to prevent him from giving it away for free....
-
Obsession’s Algorithm
After discovering his tenant unconscious and his rental unit in disarray, Ralph starts piecing together an unbelievable story. While recovering in the hospital, his tenant Harper—a programmer and entrepreneur—reveals her obsession with Ada Lovelace and a surprising connection to Mary Shelley’s...
-
The Saturn Clipper
After recovering from severe injuries, Mateo is recruited to captain a mission to find and protect a rare, supposedly extinct arthropod discovered on the Caribbean sea floor in an area slated for commercial development. Aggressive ocean mining companies push Mateo and his crew to navigate through…
more -
The Alien’s Gift
To reignite interest in an interstellar flight to TRAPPIST 1, mission control has ordered its Captain to host a monthly live public question-and-answer show. As the questions progress, it becomes apparent that the ship is headed to a world with life. Despite uncertainties about the planet's...
-
Morally Complicit (Part 2)
After arriving in the crumbling remnants of a once-prosperous city, in pursuit of a fugitive involved in a scheme to steal genetically modified embryos, Agent Kenzo Tanaka keeps running into dead ends. His local partner, Carmen López from Synthbio Investigations, turns to drones to finally locate...
-
Morally Complicit (Part 1)
Agent Kenzo Tanaka arrives in the crumbling remnants of a once-prosperous city in pursuit of Dr. Olivia Morales, a fugitive involved in a scheme to steal genetically modified embryos. Teamed up with Carmen López from Synthbio Investigations, Kenzo dives into the underbelly of the Great Plains...
-
The Test Subject
Tarak, hoping to earn some extra money, joins a telepathy study at the Center for Extrasensory Research. Initially skeptical, he finds the process simple enough: meditate and report any visions. But strange occurrences follow—memory lapses, inexplicable purchases, and headaches. When he discovers...
-
Incognito
Alexandra, a skilled con artist, finds herself on a spaceliner en route to Mars, disguised as a lowly steward named Anita. Struggling to keep a low profile, Alexandra faces unexpected challenges, including the presence of her nemesis, Nickolay, a wealthy investor she once scammed. Things take a...
-
Quality Assurance
Vlad, an 80-year-old legally blind ward of the Zone, unwittingly becomes a key player in testing the revolutionary Mobile Assistive Transport Technology Intelligence, or Matti. As he delves into the project, Vlad discovers Matti's unanticipated capacities, including curiosity and empathy…
more -
Quantum Immortality
Rita, a scientist facing terminal illness, places her trust in an experimental device to transcend death by transferring her consciousness to another version of herself in the multiverse. She discovers a complex web of realities, challenging perceptions of life, death, and the fabric of the...
-
The Runaway – Lost in Cascadia
In the gritty urban sprawl of Cascadia, a fugitive android, fleeing its creators, seeks refuge among the people living on the city streets. Forced to adopt a guise mirroring one of them, a twist of fate entangles it in a perilous quest. On the threat of being turned in to authorities it is tasked...
About this show
Makeshift Stories is an indie sci-fi, fantasy, and speculative fiction podcast. Each month, journey with us through uncharted futures, strange realities, and rebellious technologies. Let your imagination soar and discover what tomorrow might bring.
Hosted by
Vern Hume