The Triverse is
Mid-Earth, an alternate 1970s London
Max-Earth, a vision of the 26th century
Palinor, where magic is real
Interlude
Previously: In 1772, two portals opened in London and Sally found herself pulled through to an alternate universe. A far future version of Earth, with Sally now an accidental inter-dimensional explorer. She continues to discover and explore the new world…
Max-Earth. 2342.
London.
They’d given Sally everything. New clothes, a place to stay, food. Accepting that their city of wonders was a version of London had taken her the best part of a week, only believing it when Justin had shown her old buildings she recognised from her life, now dwarfed by steel and glass towers.
She was, evidently living in a dream. A doorway had opened and whisked her away to a place and a life she’d never imagined; could never have dared to imagine. Surviving to the end of the day without getting knifed and with enough coin to pay rent and buy some scraps to eat — that had been her entire existence. Sally had known of the rich toffs in the city, had seen them from afar going up and down the fancier streets and across the bridges. Her only aspiration in that regard was working a different set of streets where the clients could pay more, but she was already getting too old. Those rich bedswervers had their particular preferences.
The ceremony was an entirely different sort of affair, one for which Sally felt uniquely ill-suited. It was a strange gathering, with the others from the park that afternoon also in attendance, alongside dignitaries from both sides of the portal. Her presence was clearly at the request of Justin and those in his version of London; the British contingent from 1772 were far less pleased to have a whore amongst them. She could feel their beady eyes on her, disapproving, mocking, tutting at her existence. This was an important event for important men, and was not for the likes of her. The table was oval and huge, covered with a feast that could feed the whole of London south of the Thames back home.
“Thank you all for being here,” said a fancy-looking man, his accent sounding like it was from the version of London with flying carriages. “I am Scott McKone, President of the Sol Alliance. We find ourselves in tumultuous times. Many of you have travelled an infinite distance to be here, across the very planes of reality. Even as I speak these words, I find myself disbelieving them. And yet, for all that distance, we are also as close as can be, a mere step through a portal from one side to the other. Our cities and our universe are intertwined, existing alongside each other, just out of view.”
He pointed to people around the table. “I would like to welcome Prime Minister Frederick North of Great Britain. May this be the first of many peaceful meetings between our worlds. Also King Louis XV, of France. We live in remarkable days, to be able to meet such people face-to-face.
“We did worry initially that the portals had enabled a form of time travel, and that we here risked paradoxing ourselves out of existence simply by interacting with the other side. Fortunately, this does not seem to be the case. Our universes are divergent and following their own, distinct paths. We collectively lack the proper vocabulary to even describe ourselves and our situation. On the one hand we have this place, my reality. To us this planet is Earth. But to you, this seems like the future, and to us your Earth appears as the past. Then there is the third dimension, one we have had very little contact with. We know the place is called Palinor, and that it is very different to both our worlds. We have no representatives from Palinor here today, alas. Palinor below, then, and us above, with another Earth nestled between. Your London is the only place with working portals to both the other realities. You are very much in the middle, an indispensable hub. A Middle-Earth or a Midgard, if I may, to draw upon old stories.”
After the meal they were taken to another room, where there was more food and drink. Sally’s stomach was not used to such indulgence, and so she found herself sat quietly on a chair in a corner, trying to make sense of what had happened to her life.
“It’s preposterous,” said a nearby voice. It belonged to the Prime Minister, Lord North. “How dare he talk of us as being in the middle. He wishes to diminish us.”
A French accent replied. “Perhaps, Lord North. Tell me, though, have you been doing your reading?” The man’s voice was cracked and old.
Neither of them had realised she was sat so close.
“My what? Speak plainly.”
“Your reading. In this last month I have been reading a great deal of historical books from this world. I wish only that I might have read them sooner, or that the portals had opened years ago, and then we might still have New France in our possession, and you scoundrels would not have fared nearly so well in that triple-damned seven years of war.”
The British man seemed flustered and impatient. “I don’t have time to be reading about a whole other reality. It may as well be fiction.”
“Ah, but you are missing the point, my good Prime Minister.” She couldn’t see the French King’s face, but could practically hear his mischievous smile. “Tell me, how is the taxation arrangement for the East India Company?”
“What are you talking about? Stop beating about the bush.”
“Allow me to counsel that if certain members of your cabinet should suggest implementing a Tea Act in the next year, you would do well to ignore them.”
They moved away, walking the room to talk to others. Sally quietly got to her feet and pretended to do the same, avoiding eye contact and trying to look busy. She found doors leading out onto a large balcony, the view looking out over the magical version of London. They were impossibly high up, higher than any building back home by several orders of magnitude.
The young man who had purchased her services a month prior was already there, smoking. The same young man who’s wallet she’d stolen. Earlier that evening she’d heard that his name was Paul. He looked in her direction and their eyes met briefly. She started to move back inside, but then changed her mind. Shrugging, she joined him where he stood by a table of prepared drinks.
“Didn’t know what else to do,” Paul said, “so I thought I’d stay here and get blind drunk.”
“I thought they might seat us next to each other for the meal,” she said.
“That would have been fucking awkward, eh?”
She nodded. “Do you feel like we shouldn’t be here?”
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t nicked my wallet.” He grinned, the luxuries of the past few weeks unable to hide his crooked teeth. “If my mate had been the one to go off with you, he’d be here instead, right?”
“None of this makes sense.”
“Well, this lot seem to think it’s important we’re here. We’re symbols, or something. First ones through the portal. My mum would be proud, bless her soul. It’s a step up from loading fish.” He puffed on his cigarette, then considered it. “Did you hear that these things are really bad for you back home? Kills your lungs. The ones they’ve got here are safe. They know so much here.”
“I wonder what happens next?”
“Next?”
She waved a hand in the direction of the room behind them, with its smartly dressed guests of honour, the banquet tables, the musicians in one corner. “This can’t last forever. What happens when they get bored of us?”
“Opportunities, Sally, my girl, opportunities. That’s what this place is. Opportunities. You see one, you got to go for it. That’s my motto. We got to take as much as we can from these rich future men. That’s what I’ll be doing.”
There was movement and someone touched her shoulder gently. “If I may,” said Justin. “A word, please, Sally.”
She brightened at his arrival. He was immaculately dressed and strangely ageless: he could have been anywhere from his late twenties to early forties. There was nobody like him back home. On this new Earth they must breed a kind of supermen. There was a depth in his eyes, as if his mind was both present in the room and elsewhere at the same time.
He led her away from Paul, to the other end of the balcony. “How are you finding our Earth, Sally?”
A convoy of flying carriages swooped overhead. A tower taller than all the rest stretched up into the sky until she couldn’t see its top, bending towards the horizon at an unlikely angle. “Confusing. Overwhelming.”
“It must be a significant change from what you are used to.”
She nodded, looked down at her ragged fingernails. She hadn’t talked much about her life back in her London, about having to work the streets just to stay alive. About all the friends already dead. About the diseases and the accidents and the violence. There were different worlds even back on her world, realities which carefully ignored the existence of the others. Lord North did not inhabit her world any more than she belonged in this city of the future with its flying machines.
“Everything here confuses me,” she said.
“This is a time for confusion,” Justin said. “Even we are struggling to adapt. There was nearly conflict between Palinor and your compatriots on Mid-Earth, did you hear? The first contact there was not nearly as peaceful as your arrival here. A serious incident was only averted due to some of the Palinor weapons technology failing to work in your version of London. There is so much we yet do not understand.” Justin smiled and leaned towards her. “It is astonishingly exciting, is it not? Centuries of stability without any surprises, and now this. An event so unlikely we had never theorised it or simulated appropriate responses.”
His way of talking left her mind reeling, every sentence feeling as if she were falling into a hole. “I’m sure cleverer minds than mine will figure it all out.”
“You should not underestimate your own mind,” Justin said. “Your circumstances have not afforded you many opportunities. I can change that, if you are interested.”
There it was, then. The same promises she’d heard from other men over the years. Power plays, pledges to lift her out of her life, each one amounting to nothing. Lofty men with their need to be saviours.
“No offence, but I’ve heard this all before.”
He smiled, a perfect smile revealing perfect teeth. “I don’t doubt it. I have arranged for a monthly allowance. You will have a job as a liaison between the worlds. As a representative of your Earth, you will travel ours and help build bridges between the people of these realities. If you would like to.”
“Why me?”
“Why not you? The portal incident marks an incursion into our reality that could not have been predicted. We still don’t know how or why it happened. It is a random interjection into an otherwise stable system. An aspect of chaos. You were the first human I spoke to from your world. That is why I offer this to you. It is not entirely logical, but that is precisely what excites me, in these unpredictable times.”
“If I was interested,” she said, slowly, carefully, “what would that mean?”
“There is a lot you don’t know about our world. We have been careful to share information slowly, so as to not overwhelm or alarm. There is more to see, beyond Earth. There is more to know about me. Accepting this opportunity would mean learning the truths, and seeing them for yourself. You would live here, and decide your own path.”
As with so much over the last month, it made little sense to Sally. The most likely resolution still seemed to be that she would wake from a dream, to find herself back in her old life. She’d never been one to indulge in flights of imagination, which was the only thing rooting her to what was real. He could still be lying to her, be showering her with empty promises that would come to nothing. But there was a chance, however slim, that none of this was a dream, and that she was at the beginning of something new.
“Alright, then, Justin,” she said. “Show me your world. Show me it all. What next?”
He nodded, an expression of contentment on his exquisitely angular features. “I will tell you of the planets, and of the network, and of the true nature of myself. I will prepare you for the future.”
Thanks for reading.
It’s been another busy week, and I was down in London yesterday which is why this chapter is dropping into your inboxes rather later than normal. I had the privilege and pleasure of touring the Government Art Collection, which was very impressive and quite an inspiring place.
I recently finished reading This Is How You Lose The Time War by Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar. It’s something that passed me by when it was published, but came onto my radar last year after it started doing the rounds on social media for reasons I no longer remember. It’s one of those books that is so exquisitely well written, but in an unshowy, highly entertaining sort of way, that I become instantly jealous. It’s a pulpy time travel adventure romance, but is stylistically closer to literary fiction. That’s a big part of its appeal: it’s exciting to see those two forms merge, when they’re so often quite distinct.
Highly recommended reading.
Meanwhile!
made a fun little badge to celebrate human-made art. Check it out:My favourite thing is that it is pro-human, rather than anti-tech. We all use technology in our creative processes. At some point, somebody will create AI tools that are ethically sound and not operated by disingenuous people. Now and in the future, this badge is a useful reminder of which way around the equation should be.
Find out more here:
I’ve added the badge to my About page, where I’ve had an AI declaration for a while. There was an interesting response from
over on Notes:This will absolutely happen, and it will likely be quite stark and difficult to navigate at first. Over time there’ll be the usual hegemonic merging, but until then it’ll likely be awkward for creators and readers/viewers/players/etc. It all depends how long it takes for the current AI hype bubble to pop.
While we’re on the subject, YouTube tech channel Linus Tech Tips put together an interesting video about AI that is basically an anti-hype essay:
The channel is inherently pro-technology, and it’s encouraging to see a prominent voice calling out the way the tech is being developed and marketed, without dismissing it outright. These more nuanced voices are starting to break through, I think. Fingers crossed, anyway.
Author notes
Most of Triverse has taken place in al alternate 1970s. That’s required some historical research, but it’s divergent enough from the real 1970s for me to mostly make up what I want.
I’d forgotten that the prologue, right back at the start of the story, had taken me much longer to write than subsequent chapters due to being set prior to the portals opening. As such, the 1772 depicted in that chapter had to be accurate and real, in geography and city development and so on. I did a lot of reading about the area south of the Thames!
‘An unintended life’ has required that same attention to detail, and I hope I’ve pulled it off. We’re in the fascinating period in the triverse lore when Mid-Earth hadn’t yet properly diverged. As such, Lord North in this chapter is the real Prime Minister of 1772. The French King is the real Louis XV, only a couple of years out from his death. 1773 is when the Tea Act was passed, which prompted the Boston Tea Party, which led to the American War of Independence.
Dominoes falling. That’s why writing chapters set in this early period is a complicated affair. That said, it’s great fun. I love the idea that Louis XV, at the end of his life, has an opportunity to glimpse the future, and to see the consequences of his actions. He’s seen what is coming for Lord North and the British government. In Tales from the Triverse, there is no United States of America, and the exchange at the fancy dinner in this week’s chapter, as overheard by Sally, gives you more information on why.
More Sally next week, but I promise we’ll get back to the main story and find out what Clarke and the others have been up to very soon.
Aaah thank you so much for saying nice things about this badge. I posted it on a whim Sunday. I didn't expect it to get so much attention. Mostly positive. It's uplifting to see all the wonderful versions artists have made for the challenge. Nearly 200 now! https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/hibadge2024/
And with one casual sentence, wily old Louis XV gets George Washington killed.
Interesting to see how Sally (with her little crush) will react to learning the truth of Justin.