Assault on Stamford & Coin: part 3
In which the fan is impacted by excrement
The Triverse is
Mid-Earth, an alternate 1970s London
Max-Earth, a vision of the 26th century
Palinor, where magic is real
Previously: The SDC crew has been falsely accused of corruption and human trafficking. They have holed up at their old offices while trying to formulate a plan…
London.
1974. December.
Heaving another cabinet to the top of the stairs, Kaminski wiped his sleeve across his forehead. It was a cold winter day outside, but his efforts were keeping him warm in the abandoned building at Stamford and Coin. “What exactly is the point of this?” he said. “It’s not going to stop anyone who really wants to get up here.”
They were on one of the upper floors, the one they’d used for their covert meetings since the beginning, above the old offices. While the place had been cleared out of anything useful or valuable, there were still plenty of old cabinets, parts of chairs, desks, coat stands and arbitrary paraphernalia to corral into a barricade. Holland and Chakraborty were downstairs trying to secure the main door into the office, while he was here with Clarke setting up a collapsible blockage for the stairs.
The work was keeping him busy, but his mind drifted to their unsolvable predicament. As misunderstandings went, being framed for human trafficking was right up there with the worst of it. Kaminski wanted to walk outside and talk to people, to explain to the papers what was really happening, and to the Commissioner, and iron it all out. That it had come to physical defences and a warfare mentality was alien and every part of him wanted to rebel against it.
“It buys us some time,” Clarke said, “while we try to think of what to do next.”
“They’re still going to get us,” Kaminski said, the words sounding like something a child would say in the playground. The situation had an odd mix of the juvenile and deadly serious.
Clarke pulled a small, thumb-sized item from the inner pocket of his jacket. “As long as I have this, there’s still a chance.” It was the data Justin had stored containing incriminating recordings of Hutchinson, Miller and the others.
“Yeah, but we can’t do anything with it here. And we can’t get to Max-Earth. So it’s a lump of metal and plastic.”
Dropping the crate he was holding, Clarke looked to the ceiling in frustration, breathing heavily. “Damn it, Zoltan. They stuffed you in a container and tried to suffocate you. They shot at you in Addis. Of all of us, you should be the one wanting to go after them.”
“I do! But I didn’t anticipate being the one going to prison. It’s all upside-down.” Not for the first time in his life, Kaminski wanted to rewind, to try again, to do it all differently. He should never have brought the others into this; should have kept it between him and Bakker, so that any potential fallout would have been contained. For a time he’d thought he was in an adventure, one that could end in victory for the heroes. What a mistake.
Feet on the steps announced Chakraborty’s arrival, huffing and puffing and still looking very green. She glanced at Clarke. “Stop looking at me like a disapproving dad.”
“I just wish I’d had as good a night as you.”
She smiled sarcastically, then pointed over her shoulder. “Holland wants you downstairs to check the main door.”
“Right,” Clarke said. They’d clearly all decided to put him in charge, which he was far from happy about. He pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger and stared at the ceiling for a moment, then he frowned. “Those skylights,” he said, nodding his head in their direction, “reckon we can get up to them and open them up?”
“Want us to give it a go?”
“This building is right up against the one next door,” Clarke said.
Chakraborty walked beneath the skylight, which was far out of reach. “Think we can get out and hop across?” The ceiling wasn’t especially high, but there was no way they’d reach it without a ladder of some sort.
“See what you can figure out,” Clarke said, then gestured at the piles of detritus either side of the staircase.. “But get all this set up as a priority.”
He turned and descended the staircase, down to the dark, narrow corridor that led past the old toilets — now ripped out, to the point that he didn’t want to think where Chakraborty had been going — and the tiny galley kitchen, then out into what was once the main office space.
The door that led down and out to the street was blocked by a pile of barely identifiable objects, wood and metal and plastic. Nobody would be pushing the door open in a hurry, unless they brought some high explosive.
Holland was by one of the windows, back against the wall and glancing askew at the street. He gestured Clarke over, indicating that he should avoid the window itself. “What is it?” Clarke asked, sidling up beside his partner.
“Looks like we’ve got company,” Holland said under his breath. “Pretty sure we’ve got plain clothes across the way, and I think I saw some uniformed officers stick their noses out of an alley just now.”
The road was busy, full of rickshaws and powered automobiles and trams. The pavements were crammed with pedestrians on their way to lunch. An airship buzzed somewhere overhead. London carried on as usual. “Time for us to get upstairs,” Clarke said. “Chakraborty thinks we might be able to get up on the roof. We should go help. Down here looks secure to me.”
“Fine,” Holland said. “We can keep an eye on things from the windows upstairs anyway.”
Clarke set off towards the kitchen corridor, Holland lingering for a few seconds longer at the window; a relatively small amount of time that would make all the difference, resulting in Holland being only halfway across the room when the door and its surrounding barricade exploded into a thousands splinters.
The blast threw them both to the ground, though in Clarke’s case that meant falling towards the corridor, where he was able to scramble to cover. His ears rang and the room swam: he blinked furiously and forced himself to breathe against the concussive force. So they had used explosives, then.
Holland was on his knees in the middle of the room, struggling to get to his feet. The doorway was a smoking ruin, the frame gone and the surrounding wall obliterated on all sides. The barricade had been no more effective than a collection of feathers, now scattered across the room. Through the smoke strode a figure, large and dressed in black riot armour — one of the SDC’s rapid response team, Clarke realised. He blinked again, and recognised Constable Scarra, his rifle already raised and aimed in Holland’s direction.
“Frank, move!” Clarke shouted, leaving the relative cover of the side corridor and running back into the room.
Holland was up, but limping and moving slowly.
Scarra found his target and squeezed the trigger but the shot went wide, as the armed officer abruptly slipped, his feet skidding on the floor. The force of the weapon firing threw him off-balance yet further and he stumbled, dropping awkwardly down to one knee. Clarke was vaguely aware that they’d not bothered to clear up Chakraborty’s vomit from the entrance to the room.
He grabbed at Holland and pulled him along, back towards the corridor. There was the echoing crack of another shot and he felt Holland flinch, blood spattering onto Clarke’s shirt. A firm hold on Holland, he dragged them both onwards. At the kitchen he kicked at the primed pipes, knocking the joints loose and sending water spitting out into the corridor. He twisted a valve and the smell of gas hit his nostrils; that might dissuade Scarra from firing another shot.
Up the stairs they went, and once they cleared the top step he heard an enormous cacophony of crashing furniture and objects as Chakraborty and Kaminski tipped all of their items into the stairwell. It would be considerably more difficult to clear, no matter what gear Scarra had with him.
There was a step ladder in the middle of the room, looking to Clarke like a saviour delivered from the gods. “Where the hell did you get that?”
“In the back,” Chakraborty said.
“Let’s go,” Kaminski said, then: “Shit, is Holland shot?”
“Fuck off,” Holland said, “we’ll think about that later.” He was the first to the ladder, climbing with one arm, his other limb limp by his side.
Clarke pointed at Chakraborty. “You next.”
She looked for a moment like she was going to object, then started climbing.
Kaminski went next. Clarke could hear crashing and scraping from the stairwell, as Scarra and whoever else was below tried to clear a path. They were running low on time. Finally, he moved to the ladder and went rung over rung, up to the open skylight, and pulled himself up and out onto the chilly rooftop.
Sergeant William Golding stood near the others, his weapon aimed towards Kaminski. They knelt on the icy, wet ground with their hands in the air.
“Stop running,” Golding said. “We have orders to shoot to kill. They want you dead. I disagree with those orders. Stop running and I’ll bring you all in alive.”
Clarke glared at the man, eyeing the rooftop for any potential way out.
“Stop thinking of stupid things and do the clever thing,” Golding said. “You’ve got about ten seconds before the rest of the squad gets up here. I can protect you, but only if you let me.”
“You know this is all bullshit?” Kaminski said. “That they’re trying to frame us?”
“Frankly, I don’t know what’s going on,” Golding said, his gun still trained on the detective, “but I can smell a bad order from a mile away.” He took a trio of handcuffs from a pocket and threw them in Clarke’s direction. “Now, put those on the others, then I’ll deal with you.”
The police van was cramped. Its under-powered engine sputtered as it bounced along London cobblestones, taking its cargo to the jail cells. They were all piled in, still handcuffed, sat on opposite sides of the van’s rear compartment on metal benches. Two armed officers sat at the front end. A small window afforded glimpses of the driver and another armed officer.
Kaminski gazed at his feet on the metal floor of the van. They had well and truly lost. All four of them arrested. Bakker still missing, but presumably also under arrest. Holland was still bleeding from the shoulder and looking paler every minute. Chakraborty somehow looked worse than him, her skin gone a decidedly ashen shade. Clarke was silent and avoided Kaminski’s glances.
Failure was rarely so total and irrevocable. Mistakes tended to have the possibility of resolution, or at least could contain some sort of learning. Where there might be regret, there would often be the opportunity to do better next time. There was no fixing this. He was experiencing an absolute poverty of hope, a well of despair so deep he couldn’t imagine there being a bottom. They would be split up once they arrived at their destination, then at some point there would be a show trial, and then they’d all go away for a very long time. If they were lucky. Perhaps they’d be found hanging in their cells, like Miller. Prison wasn’t a fun place for a cop. Or ex-cops, as they now all were.
His abject desolation led him to thoughts he would later regret; thinking of how much easier it would have been to have let them shoot them, and be done with it. If he’d died from the dopur poisoning, the previous year, he wouldn’t have ended up in such a terrible predicament now. Hell, he’d have died before his mother, saving him that pain. His thoughts tumbled on top of each other, each more selfish than the last. He imagined giving up his colleagues in exchange for his own freedom. Of abandoning Nisha. He hated his own brain for even considering it, wanted nothing more than to be rid of those thoughts, but they returned again and again.
A brief shout of warning from the driver was the only notice they had before the van upended, the rear lifting high into the air as the vehicle came to a crunching and painful halt, the sound of metal and rubber sparking and scraping on tarmac. They were all thrown around the insides, Kaminski feeling something crack on his foot as Clarke slid into it. There was the sound of a single gunshot from outside, then a scream. They all sat in stunned silence, nursing their bruises, each becoming aware at the same time of the sound of crunching footsteps outside the van, moving from the front around to the closed doors at the rear.
The armed officers raised their weapons and struggled to their feet, pushing past the tangled bodies of Kaminski and his comrades. “Stay down,” one of them growled in their general direction. The officer at the front reached out to turn the handle that would open one of the rear doors, but it was torn from its hinges before he had a chance, bright daylight spilling in. There was a flash of movement and the officer was dragged out of the van with a yelp. No shot was fired, and there was silence save for the second guard, now whimpering slightly.
“I’m armed!” he shouted, his voice betraying his lack of confidence. He edged towards the half-open doors, barrel of his gun pointed ahead. Just as the weapon cleared the rear of the van, Kaminski saw a hand reach in and grab hold of the weapon, yanking it away from the officer before he had a chance to use it. He heard the weapon clatter onto the road outside, then the hand shot back inside, grabbing the officer by the neck and pulling him, squealing, out of the van.
The four of them remained, Kaminski blinking in confusion and tugging at where the handcuffs had dug into his wrists in the crash. It occurred to him that this might be an effort to silence them all in one move, thus solving the problem of what to do with them.
The sound of footsteps returned, coming closer. The other rear door was peeled away, despite being warped in the crash. A figure stood there: a man, tall, slightly silhouetted against the glare of the midday sun, his hair blowing slightly in a breeze. Kaminski didn’t recognise him.
“Hello there, detectives,” said the man. “You won’t know this face. I selected this host for its unusual size and speed, attributes which I ordinarily wouldn’t prioritise but which seemed prudent on this occasion.”
“Justin?” they exclaimed at once.
“Yes, quite. Isn’t this unusual?” He leaned in. “I’m loathe to say this, given the phrase’s historic over-use in popular culture, but perhaps I can do so semi-ironically: I do suggest coming with me if you want to live.
”
Thanks for reading.
Time has squeezed me this week. First, I was ambushed by a dentist appointment on Monday that ate into my schedule, then tonight I had an author talk down in Suffolk that meant I was an evening down. I’m off to London on Friday, which meant that this chapter had to be squeezed in ahead of time. No complaining, just acknowledgement of how life can — and will, frequently — get in the way of our best efforts to write.
(talking of which, the talk down in Halesworth was a fantastic experience, and I even sold some copies of No Adults Allowed. The audience questions really kept me on my toes — a really clever bunch of people in attendance)
has been doing especially good stuff recently, and this hit the nail on the head:
As a creator, or even just as a sensible business, we need some kind of predictability to how our tools and platforms work. YouTube has its volatile aspects, but it’s managed to provide a relatively stable foundation for thousands of inventive and creative filmmakers. Substack appears to be doing that for writers. Meta and the other social platforms don’t seem to get it, and also fail to recognise that their inability to recognise creators will eventually lead to cultural irrelevance.
I met
at a writer event last weekend and she’s now got her own newsletter! I’ve spoken to many authors who had their debuts published in the midst of the pandemic, and Josephine’s experience is representative of how difficult that time was:
I think a lot about media abundance, and how I watch far less television and few fewer movies than ever, despite having access to so much. I used to think of myself as a cinephile of sorts, and studied film at university, but the advent of streaming has killed my enthusiasm in ways I can’t quite explain.
does a pretty good job of it, though:
Notably, the three mediums I still really enjoy and actively engage in are the ones I personally curate: books, games and comics. I research and buy titles myself, and there’s a constant excitement and sense of discovery.
Streaming reduces everything to ‘content’, which robs it of cultural impact and artistic weight. I’m not quite sure why it does, and perhaps this is a generational thing, but it’s something I need to figure out if I’m ever going to love movies again.
Talking of movies, I’ve fallen in and out of love with the Indiana Jones films multiple times, and so thoroughly enjoyed this thoughtful examination of Temple of Doom:
What a great discussion!
Right:
Author notes
The final moments of this chapter have been in my head for months. Possibly years.
There’s more to come next week, obviously, so I don’t want to say too much just yet, other than to say that Justin smashing up the van and intervening has been on the cards for a very long time. It’s one of those key waypoints in my story bible that has remained in place, even while lots of details have shifted and adapted around it.
Scarra slipping on Chakraborty’s puke and thus missing the shot probably saved Holland’s life, and is probably my favourite bit of story seeding I’ve ever done. No, Chakraborty being hungover and vomity wasn’t in this story so that Scarra would miss the shot, but once she started puking, I then knew this had to happen. It’s a very, very silly moment, but one which hopefully works given the context. Clarke and the others have found themselves in an entirely absurd situation, so it flows.
You know a drawstring bag? Where you pull the string and the bag closes around the neck? That’s how I’m imagining Triverse’s plot right now. I’ve pulled the string and everything has suddenly tightened up. All the plot strands are suddenly energised and bumping into each other. It’s quite exciting.
In episodic serials there are two types, generally. The ones that his the reset button at the end of an episode, and those that don’t Triverse is the latter, so, as you can imagine, the events of this storyline are going to have serious ramifications.
Kaminski’s moment of doubt: that was painful to write, but felt like a real response. Self-preservation and enlightened self-interest trump all else, and in that moment he couldn’t see past himself and his regrets. When I was younger I was blessed with a life in which I had vanishingly few regrets; it’s only as I’ve got older that I’ve come to properly understand the concept of mistakes that you can’t fix, of errors and trespasses that you can’t undo. A lot of that is seeping into Triverse, I think, in a way that didn’t happen in my earlier fiction.
WELL. Next week, we get to find out just how much they’re all going to regret this.
Thanks for reading.
Thank you so much for the mention Simon. It means a lot to hear my experience resonates with other writers and lockdown debutants. Also, thanks for an enjoyable read from the traverse tales! Look forward to the next instalment :)
I have to say, I've been on the edge of my seat for these past chapters, reading them as soon as they pinged into my inbox. Well done! And very satisfactorily I anticipated Justin's little deus ex machina moment! Really, who else could've helped them at this point? I do hope they will get a somewhat happy ending, despite the realism of the story (which I also love).