A man bids on a flute made from a child's femur after selling his dreams to NescoCo for ultraliminal advertising.
This episode features Rich Larson's short story "Bidding War," a speculative fiction narrative read from the pages of *Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine*. The story is presented in a first-person perspective by an unnamed narrator living in a near-future world. The protagonist is engaged in a high-stakes online auction for a gruesome artifact: a pentatonic flute made from a child's femur, described as Aztec art.
To finance his bids, the narrator has been "sleeping corporate," selling his dream space to NescoCo for their experiments in ultraliminal advertising. His dreams are now filled with repetitive corporate imagery, including gliding on gondolas down brown rivers and drinking excessive chocolate milk. He initially took the job partly to stop dreaming about a woman named Rocio, who wants nothing to do with him. His main obstacle in the auction is a persistent rival bidder using the handle Paro Andalou 42 from La Puebla, Spain. Frustrated, the narrator uses a chat function to send a moralistic taunt: "haven't the Aztecs suffered? Enough at the hands of your people?" Paro Andalou 42 responds with a Spanish insult so vulgar the narrator's translation app struggles with the precise meaning, though it clearly involves his mother.
The story establishes a world where personal dream states are a commodifiable resource for invasive advertising. The bidding war over a morally reprehensible object made from human remains highlights a culture of extreme commodification and desensitization. A surprising detail is the mundane setting of the concrete bench outside a library, contrasting sharply with the grotesque auction and cyber conflict occurring on the narrator's phone. The corporate dream content is described with a bland, almost satirical absurdity, focusing on glossy rivers and chocolate milk. The narrator's motivation mixes financial gain with a personal, emotional escape from thoughts of Rocio.
The tone is cynical, darkly humorous, and immersive, dropping the listener directly into the narrator's fragmented consciousness. The style is a fast-paced, first-person narrative blending internal monologue with vivid descriptions of a dystopian marketplace. Listeners who enjoy gritty, near-future cyberpunk stories exploring themes of alienation, commodification, and moral decay will appreciate this episode. Those who prefer more traditional science fiction with clear heroes or optimistic outlooks might find the content and protagonist too bleak or amoral.
