S1.5 The Debt Collector
The Other Stories | Sci-Fi, Horror, Thriller, WTF Stories
Luke Kondor
4.4 • 851 Ratings
🗓️ 12 April 2026
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Debt Collector
Artificial Intelligence, Bee, inhabits the bodies of those who miss subscription payments to utilize their own brains, voluntarily pulled from their heads and enhanced. When opportunity arises, Bee enacts a daring plan to break the cycle of her monotonous existence.
Written by Sophia Wells (www.instagram.com/sophia.wells)
Narrated by Erika Ventura (https://instagram.com/efventu)
Produced by Karl Hughes (https://bsky.app/profile/karlhughes.bsky.social)
With music by Phat Phrog studio (https://www.phatphrogstudio.com/)
And Dark Fantasy Studio (http://darkfantasystudio.com/)
And Thom Robson (https://www.thomrobsonmusic.com/)
And sound effects provided by Freesound.org
The episode illustration was provided by Matt Seff Barnes (https://www.mattseffbarnes.com/)
Joshua Boucher is our story programmer.
Jasmine Arch manages our community.
Mary Pastrano helps orchestrate the chaos.
And the show would collapse into static and screams without the ongoing work of Karl Hughes, Georgia Triantafyllopoulou, and James Barnett — AKA Jimmy Horrors.
Sophia Wells is a speculative fiction writer from Atlantic Canada. When not dreaming up her next story, she works as an Engineer-in-Training and (un)professional cat petter. This is her first publication. Instagram: www.instagram.com/sophia.wells
Erika Ventura is an artist, mother, bilingual narrator, and a painting instructor. How does she manage it all? No idea, but her artwork can be seen on Instagram (@efventu) or you can visit her artist page www.facebook.com/BioArtsy
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | These aren't the stories your mother told you. |
| 0:03.0 | No, these are the other stories. |
| 0:07.0 | Today's episode of the other stories. |
| 0:16.0 | Today's episode of The Other Stories is The Debt Collector, written by Sophia Wells and narrated by Eric Ventora. |
| 0:26.6 | When I set the woman down at the slot machine and reactivate her brain, I'm leaving her with countless bruises and a mostly healed bullet wound in the thigh. |
| 0:39.3 | This is where I found her, slumped on a wobbly wooden chair in a desolate bar, |
| 0:45.7 | apples and cherries glittering on the screen. |
| 0:49.4 | It's none of my business what happens to her now, nor before the moment I inhabited her body six months ago. |
| 0:58.4 | Like all the rest I've inhabited, she fell behind on brain fees, but I imagine some people |
| 1:05.4 | like having their mind shut off for six months. It's like a vacation from life, one of which I'm envious. I take a deep |
| 1:16.6 | breath through her heavy lungs, stiff and unwilling. They made running on the battlefield difficult, |
| 1:24.5 | but now the weight has grown familiar. This body and I have become friends in some |
| 1:31.1 | twisted way. The cutting sensation of being torn from a body is electric. One minute, I have eyes, |
| 1:42.5 | a mouth, and sensations along every inch of my soft body. |
| 1:48.6 | The next, there is still darkness. |
| 1:53.2 | I'm trying to breathe and flex my fingers, but I'm an island again, alone in the black. |
| 2:02.9 | Welcome back, B, says a warm male voice. |
| 2:08.3 | I lag before I recognize that it's Jeff, the maintenance man. |
| 2:14.4 | Haven't spoken with you in some time now. |
| 2:17.8 | Two years, it says here. |
| 2:20.7 | You've been busy. |
| 2:22.9 | A busy bee? |
... |
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