#56 - The Dark Shard, Part 1

Colbert turned away from the view. “Do you still intend to use what you call a weapon against them? To wage war on a people we know nothing about?”

"A war they started seventy years ago! When their so-called 'Philadelphia Experiment' landed here and killed over a thousand people!'

A two-part steampunk story loosely based around the conspiracy theory surrounding the Philadelphia Experiment. A chief engineer decides that enough is enough, and hands his resignation in; but will it be enough to stop the government from using his creation for war?

Another part of Steampunktober here at Pocket Fiction, celebrating the release of short story anthology 'Cogs In Time 3', now available in ebook and physical formats! The Dark Shard has several roots. I'd all-but forgotten about the Philadelphia Experiment, which is alleged to have taken place in 1943, but podcast Stuff You Should Know did an episode on it recently and pretty much all the way through I was thinking 'But wouldn't it be cool if...' The result is this podcast.

You can find out about the Philadelphia Experiment on Wikipedia, or through Stuff You Should Know (which is a podcast I can highly recommend). The Shard in the podcast is, of course, London's famous building. The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, really did say that quote. Don't worry, I had to look up what an integument is as well. Part 2 next week, folks!

As always, I would love to collaborate with you! If you have short fiction that you would like me to include as a standalone episode of Pocket Fiction, drop me a line!

Each track is also available as a podcast through the iTunes store.

Thanks for listening! Ideas? Suggestions? Things you would like me to read? Please comment and subscribe!

Music: “The Pyre” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). 
Licensed under Creative Commons: By attribution 3.0. 

Sound effects used in this podcast: Construction Site by Tomlija; Elevator Travel 2 by Yoyodaman234; Shutter_Loud_Shop by Anton.