Alliances: part 1
Quietly does it
This is my ongoing scifi / fantasy / crime fiction serial. New chapter every week.
The Triverse is
Mid-Earth, an alternate 1980s London
Max-Earth, a vision of the 26th century
Palinor, where magic is real
Previously: London is under martial law. The Triverse is on lockdown. A team of former detectives and rebel insurgents have a plan…
London. Mid-Earth.
1980. June.
The members bar in the Houses of Parliament wasn’t what it used to be. Matthew Graves, MP for Norwich, did his best to avoid it. Rather than the heady cross-party mix that the older politicians reminisced about, it was now the exclusive territory of Prime Minister Nigel Maxwell’s Earth First party. Even the Conservatives, with whom they’d initially been in Coalition, were excluded.
Graves returned the stare of the Earth First bouncers on the doors, refusing to be intimidated, and continued down the corridor, then up a flight of stairs to his small ministerial office. It wasn’t comfortable, being a member of an opposition party in 1980s England, especially representing a holdout city that refused to supplicate itself to London and the surrounding regions.
Treading carefully was the name of the game, and Graves fortunately was uniquely qualified to tread that particular line. As the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner he’d had many years of finding a way round, through, over or under. He knew how Westminster worked, knew how the city worked and the Kingdom more broadly. He’d always been a political animal, in spite of himself. He hadn’t been able to hold his marriage together or anything resembling a personal life, but he’d directed the Met through tough times and had made necessary changes. Not nearly enough, but more than nothing. And he’d been instrumental in turning the Specialist Dimensional Command into something to be proud of, a department that had made a real difference.
It was a facade now, a puppet division that served the propaganda masters. Portal crimes were held up as evidence of the need for civilian crackdowns and portal lockdowns. Earth First protested loudly at the slightest infraction, but the truth was that they needed fear, they needed crime and unrest. Just enough to give them an enemy, without it ever becoming a real threat. A bogeyman to help them win local elections and get laws through the Commons.
There was only so much Graves could do, as an independent, and it wasn’t enough. They’d pushed him out of the Met, along with most of the other senior officers. Moved to bureaucratic roles, pushing pens around desks, or forcibly retired like Bakker.
They lived in dark times. Graves had lost his position, lost his hand-picked team of detectives. But he’d still got elected, against the odds. Could still make a difference to the people living in his constituency. Occasionally he’d risk a speech in parliament, even knowing it wouldn’t get any media coverage.
His assistant, Katie, brought in a stack of papers: newspaper cuttings, letters from constituents, upcoming amendments to consider. The trappings of democracy continued, even while Earth First made a mockery of them. Performative freedom. As she placed the stack onto his desk, she lifted the top layer to reveal an envelope, then left the room.
She was reliable. Knew the stakes. He didn’t trust many people, but he trusted her. Pulling the envelope from the pile, he checked the seal then sliced it open.
A single piece of paper, with a short message: PUB, 9, RF
The White Horse had always been the SDC’s pub of choice. Even after the move to the Joint Council tower, they’d still frequently made the trek on a Friday night.
It had been years since Robert Ford had last bought a pint from the bar of The White Horse. Same landlord, Paul — nobody knew his surname — and the same furniture. Same towels on the bar top, possibly never washed. Stay long enough and Ford might be able to convince himself that it was half a decade earlier, before the country went to the shitter.
The most annoying aspect was that he was still in fucking London. He should have gone back north, even back to Durham where he’d grown up. It’s what he’d always wanted to do, back when he was in the job — get on a train and go back to where he belonged, away from all these soft southern pansies. Now that everything had gone tits up, though, it felt like running away. It had the whiff of cowardice.
“Didn’t expect to see you here,” came a distantly familiar voice, accompanied by a slap on Ford’s back.
He turned, to see the face of none other than Commissioner Graves.
Ford smiled. “Alright, guv?”
“Not your guv anymore.”
Graves was typical home counties stock, but he was one of the rare good ones. “You never stop being the guv, guv,” Ford said. He waved a hand at the bartender.
Pulling up a stool, Graves leaned on the bar next to him. “Funny coincidence, running into you here.”
“Anything I should be worried about?” They’d all kept deliberately apart, especially with Graves going down the political route. The fewer ties to the old days, the better for everyone.
“I’m not sure,” Graves said. He accepted the pint and took a sip. “I received a letter. Looked like it was initialled by you.”
“Funny you should say that,” Ford said, pulling a piece of paper from his jacket and showing it briefly to Graves. “Mine looked like it was from you.” It might have been a set-up, though in aid of what he couldn’t tell. Meeting in a pub wasn’t a crime, not yet, and their work together at the SDC was hardly a secret.
“We can enjoy our drinks, then go our separate ways,” Graves said. “No harm done.”
“Somebody wanted us here.” Ford looked into the head of his beer. “Makes me nervous.”
The telephone behind the bar started ringing.
“It’s fine,” Graves said. “We can be normal, no problems. Two old former colleagues, enjoying some beers.”
That it sounded dangerous made Ford sick to his stomach.
Paul held out the phone. “It’s for you,” he said.
Ford and Graves looked at each other. “Which one?”
“They said it didn’t matter.”
Grabbing the handset, Ford lifted it to his ear. Graves was the fancy politician, the one with some actual power and influence. If anyone was going to get into trouble, it might as well be Ford.
“This is Ford.”
“Old HQ. If it’s clear.” The line went dead.
Graves was looking at him expectantly. “Well?”
“Looks like we’re going to Stamford and Coin,” Ford said. “Drink up.”
They hadn’t been followed. It was easy to tell, because the streets of London were mostly deserted at night. The old office had the benefit of being situated equidistant between two watchtowers, meaning that there would be no nearby patrols or pesky military police with binoculars. London was a big city; surveilling all of it was an impossible task.
The street door was unlocked and they slipped inside. Skulking about hadn’t been on Graves’ list of the evening’s activities, but here they were. There was still the distinct possibility that it was entrapment, that this was a ploy to undermine his authority or have him recalled and a new election instigated. But they’d been careful, and Ford had sounded optimistic about the voice on the phone.
After climbing the stairs, the musty air of the building wrinkling Graves’ nostrils, they entered into what had once been the bustling headquarters of the Specialist Dimensional Command. It was now an empty office space, devoid of furniture. Graves could still hear Robin on the phone, Holland swearing in the small kitchen, Clarke barking at any uniformed officers who dared visit, DS Collins being insufferably useless. It was all gone, like just about everything else.
There was still a partitioned smaller office in the corner of the larger space. The door opened, and Stephen Walpole stepped out. “Told you I recognised the voice,” Ford said, smiling.
“Detective Chief Superintendent,” Graves acknowledged, stepping closer. “How’s the family? And I trust you’ve been looking after the Force in my absence?”
Walpole shrugged. “The gaping arseholes in the tower keep me behind my desk. Pushing little bits of paper around like some sort of bastard.” He seemed to relax a little. “Isabelle is good. Shona, too.”
He’d always been the most profane of the high ranking staff. Had always kept his home life far away from the rest of them.
Ford was circling around the room. “Why are we here, boss man?”
“It’s not just us,” Walpole said, stepping aside and indicating towards the doorway.
A plume of cigarette smoke wafted out first, followed by Zoltan Kaminski and Nisha Chakraborty. They stood next to Walpole, both looking decidedly pleased with themselves. The last time Graves had seen either of them in the flesh had been before the arrests, before Earth First, back when he’d still been commissioner. Half a decade ago, and yet here they both were, back in the old SDC offices.
“Hey guys,” Kaminski said, dragging on his cigarette. “Red-letter day. Want to help us bring down the government?”
Meanwhile.
Tomorrow, I’ll be on a train to France. As such, next week’s newsletters might be disrupted somewhat. It’s hard to predict: sometimes I’ll get lots of writing done while travelling, other times it’ll entirely disrupt my usual schedule.
If anyone has any tips for Avignon, do let me know!
Over on
this week I wrote about Sable, a minimalist, visually striking game from Shedworks:
My Babylon 5 rewatch continues, too. There’s something rather lovely about sending out the B5 newsletters to a couple dozen people, in contrast to the main newsletter’s chunkier readership.
I liked Anil Dash’s succinct outline of what ‘good’ AI could be.
Saw Thuunderbolts* with the 12 year old. We both enjoyed it a lot. Excellent cast and an inventive ending.
Zootropolis 2 looks amazing:
Corridor Digital continue to do interesting examinations of AI. They’ve done somewhat dubious experiments themselves in the recent past, but I appreciate the critical angle they’re now taking:
The Witcher 3 is a great piece of serial fiction. It’s a complex interweaving of episodic storytelling, bound up in a three dimensional space that players explore, following their own intuition. There’s something collaborative about that interplay between players and designers. It’s apparently 10 years old, which makes me feel very ancient indeed.
I’m very heads-down in Triverse at the moment, but at some point should have breathing space to start doing more interesting things on the Monday newsletter. I’m keen to do more videos, more Scrivener stuff, and maybe run some limited-time mini courses and workshops. Grand plans!
For now, though, Triverse comes first.
Author notes
After last week’s grimness, and the general ramping up of tension that we’ve had for months now, here we have a sign of hope. Or of optimism at least. The situation is still dire, the risks are real, and everyone in this chapter is in great danger — but these are people who are doing something.
They are not running away, not anymore. It began with the heist, tentatively, barely, and solidified with the escape back to Mid-Earth. Kaminski, Chakraborty and the others are no longer on the run. There’s been a shift, and they’re no longer retreating, or hiding.
Quite how it’ll all go remains to be seen, but that’s for later. Right now, it’s about action and plans, and having the courage to try. Our lead characters haven’t had that luxury for a long while.
Couldn’t help but have Andor in the back of my mind while writing this one — in fact, I had the soundtrack playing. I haven’t yet finished season 2 (so no spoilers, please), but it does such a good job of capturing the tension and constant fear and vigilance of rebelling against an all-powerful regime.
That’s why I returned to the White Horse — it’s a place we’ve seen before, usually in very relaxed circumstances. Now, the atmosphere is tense and uncomfortable, as is the whole of London. Suspicion is layered over every social interaction.
Kaminski’s ‘red-letter day’ is a real phrase, but for me it references back to Half Life 2 — an excellent exploration of urban dystopia. The arrival of Gordon Freeman (the player) into the city is described by one of the characters as a ‘red-letter day’, and the ensuing chaos triggers an uprising against the alien overseers. Make of that what you will.
I’ll most likely see you in two weeks, once I’m back from travelling. Thanks for reading!
I'm going to need to read all of this!
Was just about to ask if you’d been watching Andor! 😁