Expeditions & interrogations: part 8

A major breakthrough as the conspiracy comes into focus

The Triverse is
Mid-Earth, an alternate 1970s London
Max-Earth, a vision of the 26th century
Palinor, where magic is real

I recommend listening to this while reading this week’s chapter:

Previously: There is something afoot in the Triverse. The SDC team have repeatedly uncovered unethical behaviour by the shipping firm Barrindon: first human trafficking, then transport of undeclared goods. The investigation has taken Mid-Earth detectives Nisha Chakraborty and Zoltan Kaminski to Addis Ababa, the only other city on the planet to host a major dimensional portal, where they met Justin - the human-sized robot version of Max-Earth AI megaship Just Enough. Meanwhile, DC Yannick Clarke and DC Lola Styles have gone through the other portal to Palinor, where they’ve unexpectedly uncovered related information…

Bruglia.
3201. Verdant.

Lola put a hand on the table, in an attempt to both calm and focus Henry Goldspeth. “Mr Goldspeth, you have to understand the situation here. You’re under arrest for illegal acquisition, transport and trading of precious artefacts. The Palinese don’t like Mid-Earthers coming and taking their stuff. You’re not getting out of that charge, but we can help by taking the trial back to Earth.”

“But here’s the thing, Henry,” Clarke said, “the equation here isn’t in your favour. This isn’t a negotiation. You can go on trial and sit in this prison for as long as you like, or until these supposed assassins catch up with you. That’s fine by me. But if you want us to take you somewhere a little more comfortable, you have to tell us everything you know, and tell us now.”

“We can’t move you unless you give us something useful,” Lola said. For all his bluster and drama, she could tell the archaeologist was genuinely scared. It was hard to know how any of what he’d said was relevant to SDC work, or useful in their investigations. Scared or not, she was certain the man’s story was riddled with embellishments and half-truths.

He looked between the two of them, eyes darting left and right like a rodent’s. “OK, alright, I understand. I understand. You’re just doing your jobs. I get that. But you weren’t there. You didn’t see what I saw. What we all saw.”

“Then enlighten us, Mr Goldspeth,” Clarke said, sitting back with his arms crossed.

Nodding, the archaeologist took a deep breath. “Yes, of course. So, I told you that it wasn’t a dig. I mean, the site was in an old quarry, it was hidden away so you couldn’t see it unless you were on top of it. But it was more of a construction yard than anything else. Scaffolds everywhere. But no ordinary construction tools. No stonemasons or smiths or woodworkers. Instead, all over the scaffolds, there were wielders.”

Clarke rubbed the bridge of his nose between two fingers. “Wielders,” he said flatly. “A bunch of wizards?”

“Lots of them. A dozen, perhaps. All in a circle, around the thing they were building.”

Unfolding his arms, Clarke prodded at the table with a fingertip. “The wizards were building something?”

“They were forming it out of the air. Pulling material from the ground, I think. The light was flickering all around them, even though it was a clear day. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. As if they were summoning some great beast from beyond the—”

“Stick to the facts, Mr Goldspeth,” Clarke said, waving a hand and looking pained.

“Sounds like the wielders must have been, what, micrologists?”

Goldspeth shook his head. “Not just micrologists, although, yes, some of them undoubtedly. But also elementals, and I think even a couple of physologists. And you don’t see more than one of those at a time too often.”

Clarke grinned. “And then two come along at once, eh?”

“I know it sounds ridiculous.”

“It’s a very impressive tale,” Clarke said, “but I’m failing to see how it’s useful or relevant to me and Detective Styles here, or the authorities back home. So some magic wielders were having a DIY craft session.”

“They killed all of my team!”

“That would still be primarily a matter for the Palinese to investigate,” Lola said, interjecting before Clarke could rile up the man any further. “Even if what you say is entirely true, I don’t see a connection.”

“Alright,” Goldspeth said, leaning forward, “then how about this? As well as tents and all the usual stuff you’d get in a remote camp, there were a couple of things that were totally out of place. Shipping containers.”

“Shipping containers?” Lola glanced over at Clarke, whose face remained blank.

“Yes, containers. Like you get on Earth, for shipping goods around. You know what I mean. Back of cargo trains, and cargo ships. Ports are full of them, even the portal station. You don’t see them on Palinor, generally, though. Everything gets unloaded before being transported further, or boxed up at the station before going through the portal.”

“Anything about the containers that you remember? Markings? Logos? Lettering?” Clarke’s lips were thin, the muscles on his face starting to look strained.

Goldspeth frowned, then grimaced, as if trying to access distant memories. “I can’t remember exactly. There were definitely markings on the side, some words. Maybe some numbers? I think I saw the number eight?”

Clarke’s eyebrows raised, ever so slightly. “Couldn’t have been the letter ‘B’, could it?”

Addis Ababa.
1965. Sene. (Gregorian: 1973. June.)

The Addis portal station bore some similarities to the London one: both were amalgams of design principles from multiple dimensions, bearing the hallmarks of Max-Earth technology with the sensibilities of their surroundings. The Addis station was long and low, with an undulating, gently curving roof that looked more like the carapace of a beetle than a building. There was nothing quite like it back home, and Kaminski couldn’t fathom how such a large, glass structure could have been built and maintained. As with everything else he’d seen in Ethiopia, it was testament to what could be achieved through cooperation rather than competition. The Kingdom of Great Britain had set itself against Max-Earth two centuries ago, determined to forge its own path through a new history; when the portal had opened in Addis, the Ethiopians had recognised it as an opportunity for cross-dimensional exchange.

“As this portal station has only the one portal, connecting Mid-Earth and Max-Earth, I Have good relations with many of the staff,” Justin was saying. “The diplomatic situation is considerably simpler compared to the London station with its dual portals.”

Justin led them into the station and towards a door leading to the security office. “It is unfortunate that you did not contact me directly regarding your inquiries here, rather than travelling all this way. I could have investigated immediately.”

“We didn’t want to draw too much attention,” Chakraborty said.

We also don’t know who we can trust. As much as Justin had helped him, Kaminski remained suspicious of the AI’s motives and predilection for showing up at precisely the right moment. Perhaps it wasn’t possible for a human to ever fully understand a Max-Earth AI - at least, not without several degrees in quantum physics.

The interior of the station was airier and more spacious than the London equivalent, perhaps due to it only having to accommodate travellers from a single dimension. They had gone for a similar split of human and cargo, opting for a vertical separation of the two channels instead of London’s underground transport dock. The same but different.

“Ah, hi Justin,” said a cheery security official as Justin led them into a control room of sorts lined with glowing monitors. Every corner of the station could be seen across the screens. “I’ve been expecting you all day. What is it you need?”

“Security log access, please, Ajani.”

“Coming right up.” Ajani extended a hand towards Kaminski. “Pleased to meet you, I’m Ajani.”

“Kaminski.”

“From Great Britain, yeah?”

“Good ear.”

Ajani turned to Chakraborty. “Hello.”

“Nisha. Nisha Chakraborty. We’re working with Justin.”

“Hello, Nisha. Very pleased to meet you.”

The man tapped buttons on a keyboard, then turned to Justin. “All good to go,” he said. “Ports are open, so get started whenever you want. I’ll be next door, but shout if you need me.” The security man left for an adjacent room, closing a door behind him.

“He’s very trusting,” Kaminski noted.

“Ajani knows me well,” Justin said, taking a seat in front of the monitors.”

“He doesn’t know us.”

“You are with me. That is enough.”

The monitors flickered and half a dozen switched to showing a different display, cycling through images and text at rapid speed.

“What is it you’re after?” Chakraborty took a step closer, hands on hips, staring at the screens. The light cast her face in a sickly pale blue, though it didn’t diminish her appearance in the slightest. Kaminski could imagine it emphasising his own withdrawn pallor.

“Security records,” Justin said. “Searching for the shipping containers which went missing from the impound at the London station. Your theory is that they were brought here and taken through the Addis portal, which seems like a valid hypothesis. We are, of course, trailing behind so they may have already covered their tracks. This would be much faster if we were checking records on the other side of the portal, but alas my processing power is throttled when using a host on Mid-Earth.”

Chakraborty wheeled over another swivel chair, sitting heavily into it. “So what do we think about our moustachioed friend?”

“It would seem likely that he is working with the same cohort that is transporting these mysterious items,” Justin said. “For you to have been tracked from London is worrying.”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking,” Kaminski said. “You can’t just buy tickets as you go for some of that journey. It has to be pre-booked.”

“So he knew our route ahead of time,” Chakraborty said, nodding.

Justin turned towards them, his eyes oddly glazed and distant. “Correct. Which suggests there is a mole in the SDC.”

“Fuck.” Chakraborty sighed and looked up at the ceiling.

“They’re way ahead of us,” Kaminski said. “We barely know what we’re poking at, here. People smuggling? Some sort of off-the-books cargo hauling? John Callihan had his suspicions. We know the firm Barrindon is tied up in it somehow. Probably just a front operation. I feel like we’re sinking in deeper without ever knowing what we’re even investigating.”

“It just smells bad,” Chakraborty said.

Justin held up a hand. “It is as I feared. The data logs have been erased for the period in question and there is no record of the containers passing through the station. That indicates that the Addis portal station may also be compromised. However, human operators are unlikely to have been one hundred percent efficient. Allow me to search for sector remnants - if we’re lucky they will not have been overwritten and I may be able to undelete.”

Kaminski exchanged a glance with Chakraborty and shrugged. He wished he could smoke.

“Rewind a little,” Styles said. “Tell us more about what they were building.”

Goldspeth shuddered involuntarily, closed his eyes for a moment. “I wish I could scrub it from my mind, detective. It was dark, which made no sense in the sunlight. They were almost weaving it, rather than building it. The edges, where they were working, were like tendrils, like spider’s legs, or the spines of a porcupine. Or like the way oil settles on water.” He shook his head in frustration. “I know that makes no sense, but it’s impossible to describe.” He stared into her eyes. “It was the feeling, though, as if I was staring at something that was wrong. That shouldn’t be. Especially not on Palinor. It was large, though still able to be packed into one of those shipping containers. The big ones, you know the ones I mean?”

Sitting quietly, Clarke ran the information. Barrindon rearing its head again: the same firm at the centre of the human trafficking scam they’d uncovered the previous year. The same firm running the operation that nearly got Kaminski killed when he was locked into one of their containers. The impounded containers from that incident and the trafficking which had never been opened or searched, locked in legal limbo, and which had vanished from storage during the kengto attack on London. Princess Daryla’s theory that the kengto’s arrival may have been deliberate, or at least deliberately negligent. Conspiracy theorists were idiots and gullible fools, but he was starting to see the attraction.

“We know what you mean,” Styles said. She seemed better at pulling information from the man. “Did it look like a weapon? A vehicle? Any ideas?”

“Not a vehicle,” he said, quickly. “Nobody would want to climb inside that thing. It didn’t look finished. Almost like a puzzle piece. Part of something even larger.”

Clarke leaned forward. “Can you give us the coordinates of where you found it?”

“I can, if you get me a map. But you won’t find anything there, Detective Clarke. You can bet they’ve erased all evidence of their being there, just as they erased my team and have been trying to silence me.” Goldspeth slumped back in his chair, as if all energy had left him. “But now you know. It’s not just me. You know as well. They can do what they like, but you know the truth.”

“We’ll get you back through the portal and into protective custody before the end of the day, Mr Goldspeth,” Styles said. “You’ll still face charges, but it’ll be processed in a British court.”

“Take me back to Mid-Earth, lock me up and throw away the key, I don’t care. As long as I’m not in the same dimension as that thing.”

“Here is something,” Justin said, waving them over. “It is as I suspected. Humans are really very ineffective at this sort of thing. The files had been deleted, but the physical data was still on the storage medium. It would have been over-written, if we hadn’t got here sooner. It’s not everything, but let’s see what we have.” They looked up at the screens changed to display lists of data.

Kaminski squinted. “What am I looking at, here?”

“The records from the transit of the containers from London are mostly too degraded to be of use.” Justin pointed at a specific monitor. “But I found this. Another container, arrived last week and was sent through the portal with minimal checks. As with the others, its final destination was falsified. Most irritating.”

“Where did it come from?” Kaminski could feel his heart beating a little faster than usual.

“Intriguingly, it came from the Atlantic research station. A place with which I have alarmingly few connections.”

“The only other major portal to Palinor,” Chakraborty said. “They must have brought it through there instead of London.”

“We thought this might happen,” Kaminski said. “We’ve got the portal station locked down pretty tight now. Sneaking stuff through there isn’t easy. At least, not unless a giant kaiju is attacking the city and distracting us all.”

Justin looked up, their head cocked like a curious cat. “Ah, yes. The kengto. A fascinating incident indeed. I wish I could have been there.”

“The Atlantic station is about as off-limits as it gets,” Chakraborty said, grunting disquietly. “I’m not even sure if it’s private or government-run?”

“A bit of both,” Justin said. “As you say, it is largely off the grid and is not used for civilian or cargo transport. Inter-dimensional research is supposed to be its remit.”

“Looks like they’ve been diversifying,” Kaminski said.

“There is more,” Justin said. “I appear to have located scans made of the containers as they passed through the security gates here in Addis.”

Something tightened in Kaminski’s gut. “Scans? What kind of scans?”

“See for yourself.” Justin went quiet for a second, then the screen changed to show a composite image, spread over multiple monitors. A black and white image of the interior of a shipping container, clearly captured from outside using infra-red or x-rays or some such. Kaminski was no scientist. What he could definitely see was the outline of the object inside the container: irregular, a mixture of smooth undulations and sharp protrusions. There was evident mass, though it was hard to discern any particular shape.

“It looks a lot like what was in the container I got trapped in,” Kaminski said. “A lot like it. Different, also, but the same sort of construction.”

Justin pushed their chair back and paced across the room, which was an oddly human demonstration of stress. “There is something else it looks a lot like,” the robot said, looking at both of them in turn. “It looks a lot like me.”

---

As ever, thanks for reading. That was a LONG one. I hope you enjoyed the bumper-sized edition. I always remember getting bumper-sized comics as a kid in the 1980s and being extra excited.

More illustrations this week than I’ve done previously. All generated from MidJourney, which seems to get better every week.

This chapter brought together many plot threads that have been running throughout the series. Paid subscribers can keep reading to find out how that came to pass. In particular, I’m going to get into the challenges of timing multiple reveals and handling foreshadowing in a serialised story which is being published as it’s written.

Everyone else, I’ll see you next week. Have a lovely weekend.

Right. Phew! Welcome behind the curtain, faithful subscribers. I’ve been looking forward to writing this chapter for months. Well, I say that, but the specifics of how this storyline played out only came into focus relatively recently. I’ve talked previously about the necessity of malleable plotting when writing serial fiction:

How serial writing works for plotters & pantsers

This chapter is a good case in point. It’s where firm connections are at last made between multiple storylines:

• The human trafficking storyline, which was published waaaay back in October 2021 and introduced dodgy company Barrindon

• The whole escapade of Kaminski getting stuck in the shipping container, meeting Justin and sort-of stumbling on the conspiracy, which went out at the start of 2022

• The repeated references to the appearance of the Thing in the container looking similar to Just Enough’s AI megaship form (did you spot those?)

• The real reason the kengto attack on London occurred

I knew I wanted to draw those connections around this time. There’s only so long that a mystery can be maintained in a story before it starts becoming irritating. But in order for those connections to be made certain other pieces needed to be in place:

• It had to be established that there were multiple portals outside of London, and Bakker and his team had to get to the point in their investigation where further investigation was warranted

• There needed to be someone on Palinor who could make the observation about the kengto’s appearance being suspicious: that became Princess Daryla, who was handily introduced way back in November 2021

• For the kengto sub-plot to work it also had to be established that smaller ‘portal tears’ were happening: hence the ‘Backdoors’ storyline from December 2021

• The ‘mole’ in the SDC had to have some clues laid down, which I doubt anyone has spotted yet - but they’re in there for the curious

Lastly, the current storyline has to move at the right pace for this chapter to go down in this way. The ‘Expeditions & interrogations’ storyline so far has alternated between the Palinor story and the Addis story with each new chapter. I knew in this week’s that I wanted to bring them together, to give it a sense of occasion. Combining those two stories into one chapter would raise the stakes and let the reader know that something was about to go down.

So, yes. Writing serial fiction and publishing it as you go is a complex beast that requires having one eye on the future. It’s a fiddly puzzle, and one that I enjoy immensely.

Thanks for supporting my writing and making all this possible!