Biological weapons: part 3
Clarke has to spend an afternoon in his least favourite place
The Triverse is
Mid-Earth, an alternate 1970s London
Max-Earth, a vision of the 26th century
Palinor, where magic is real
Previously: Barely a year ago London was ravaged by a creature from another dimension called a ‘kengto’. A more recent terrorist attack involving multiple kengto larvae was thwarted by the SDC, who are now investigating the prime suspect…
Late shift
On duty: DC Yannick Clarke & DC Frank Holland
London.
1974. March.
The hospital smelled of antiseptic and death, as did all medical establishments. It left Clarke feeling distinctly old and fragile, as if simply by being in the building he might topple over and expire at any moment.
“One thing I like about hospitals,” Holland announced as they walked down the white corridor, “is that it’s the one place you can injure yourself without worrying about it. Best possible place to be.”
Clarke grimaced. He and Styles had hardly been similar people, but there hadn’t been the abrasive element that defined his interactions with Holland.
“I mean,” Holland continued, “as long as you don’t pick up an infection or catch something from a ward. You know, some countries hospitals are more like death traps. You go in: you don’t come out. I hear that’s what it’s like on the west coast of North America.” He sniffed, loudly. “Still, better than not having hospitals. Break your leg in Palinor and you’re fucked. Bet Styles didn’t think of that one.”
“I’m sure Palinor has hospitals, Holland.”
“Nope. No healthcare at all.”
“Then where did they take the girl from the case you were running this time last year? What was her name?” Clarke didn’t want to get into it, but couldn’t stop himself from countering Holland’s general bullshit. Maybe that was a bit of Styles rubbing off on him.
Holland looked perplexed, then pointed a finger back at him. “You mean Yvette Field? Everyone thought the koth did it? Except me, obviously.”
“That’s the one.”
“Fuck knows where they took her. Case was closed from my point of view. Out of my hands.”
“I recall they don’t call them hospitals. And healing works differently, because they can wizard up some magic potions or some such. Styles talked about it once, I didn’t really follow.”
“Yeah, OK, I don’t really give a shit, Clarke,” Holland said, pausing outside the door to a ward. “This looks like the one.”
Clarke checked the number above the door and confirmed it. Holland banged the door open unceremoniously and strode in. Taking a deep breath, Clarke followed.
A nurse turned towards them in surprise and held up his hands. “You can’t be in here—”
Holding up his badge, Holland ignored him and went straight over to the bed. Not in such a rush, Clarke showed his badge to the nurse and introduced them both. “We have reason to believe this patient is a suspect and need to arrange for custody.”
“He can’t leave,” the nurse said, shaking his head, “his injuries are too severe.”
“Then we’ll need to establish a police presence here, until he can be transferred,” Clarke said. He glanced at the bed, where a youngish man was lying, covered in bandages and clearly missing an arm and a leg. “Has he said anything, been awake at any point?”
“Only briefly,” the nurse said, checking a clipboard of notes hanging from the foot of the bed. “Said his name was ‘Vietr’. That was about it.”
“Vietr,” Holland said, rolling the syllables slowly. “Sounds Palinese. Almost aen’fa, but he looks human to me.”
“He is human,” the nurse confirmed. “And lucky to be alive. The other victims of the attack suffered trauma to the head and were killed immediately.”
“I wouldn’t call losing an arm and a leg ‘lucky’.” Holland shuddered. “That happened to me, I’d rather not wake up.”
Ignoring him, Clarke turned to the nurse. “Any idea yet of when he’ll regain consciousness? We’ll need to ask him questions as soon as possible.”
“It’s impossible to say for sure. His body’s taken a massive beating. But he’s stable. Could be in the next hour, or could take a week or more.”
“Really useful, thanks, doc,” Holland said.
“I’m not a doc—”
He waved the nurse to silence. “We’ll have officers here in the next half hour,” Holland said, checking his watch. “Nobody that isn’t staff is to come in here until then, got it?”
“Thanks for your help,” Clarke said. “We’ll wait outside. Call us if anything changes.”
There was a small, boxy television hung up on the wall of the hospital waiting room. Clarke would have happily ended his shift and gone home for the day, but that wasn’t an option until the PCs arrived to take up watch on Vietr’s room. Patients and hopefuls came and went, a revolving display of despair and fear and elation. Coughing echoed up and down the corridors. Distant sound of crying, somewhere.
The news was playing on the television. That MP was being interviewed about something: Nigel Maxwell. A seeping pustule of a man. Having to meet-and-greet him the other week had been excruciating.
“Hey, look, Clarke - it’s your favourite politician!” Holland grinned and passed him a styrofoam cup of coffee.
Clarke grunted.
“I agree he’s one hundred per cent an arsehole,” Holland said, “but he’s not the worst of them. He’s honest about his opinions, at least. And he’s funny. You can’t say that about many of them.”
Squinting at the subtitles on the muted television, Clarke picked up something about a promised referendum, but couldn’t make sense of it. No doubt more daftness from Earth First, taking up all the air in the room without ever actually doing anything. Leaning back in his uncomfortable plastic chair, he sighed deeply and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Theories, then,” Holland said, clearly unperturbed at being stuck in a hospital waiting room without any actual afflictions. “Was this a terrorist incident, or a dumb ass mistake?”
“The camera recordings from the concourse certainly made it look deliberate.” Clarke crossed his arms and frowned. “But why would anyone hatch a case of kengto eggs on themselves?”
“Delusions of martyrdom? Palinor’s version of a suicide bomb?”
Didn’t seem right to Clarke. “A suicide bomb is fast and final. A big statement - boom. You’re done. That’s what makes you famous. It also reduces the chance of you being merely injured. Being eaten slowly by larvae doesn’t fit that.”
“More like self-immolation, then? Purposefully cruel and painful in order to spread your message.” Holland’s eyes were narrowed and he didn’t look entirely satisfied with that theory. “Do we think it’s connected to last year’s kengto attack?”
“It’s never been proven whether that was deliberate or simple negligence at the zoo.”
Holland harrumphed. “Very good of the Bruglian authorities to side-step that one. Nobody wants to pay for damages, or compensation to all the injured and dead. Fucking disgraceful.”
“This was very different,” Clarke said. “Our boy Vietr made a statement, it was evidently pre-meditated. He was trying to send a message. The kengto attack, deliberate or accidental, was more about chaos.”
Pulling his notebook from a pocket, Holland flicked it over to a recent page. “OK, then. Vietr was shouting about slavery, according to surviving witnesses. Sounded like some kind of insurgency announcement.”
Clarke nodded. He’d have to contact Styles, see if she could shed any light on the group. “Yet another faction. Why are there so many players at the moment? I can’t keep track of all the conspiracies.”
“What conspiracies?” Holland had turned to look at him askance.
Shit. He’d been a fool for thinking out loud, somehow forgetting that he no longer partnered with Styles. Holland wasn’t part of their group, and didn’t know about Callihan and everything that had happened since. He might even be part of it. “Oh, you know,” he said, waving a hand, “doesn’t it feel like everything’s more chaotic these days than it used to be?” He pointed at the television. “You’ve got that Earth First lot causing trouble, religious nutters popping up all over the country, terrorists blowing shit up all through the triverse. Everything’s spinning out of control.”
“Nah,” Holland said, sipping his coffee. “It’s always been like that, it’s just more obvious at the moment. World’s always been going to shit. It’s up to people like us to slow it down, at least for a time, right?”
“Doesn’t feel like we’re doing a particularly good job.”
“We can’t be too effective. I still need to collect a wage every month.”
Clarke finished his own coffee and threw it into a nearby bin. “I wouldn’t worry. The way things are going, we’re not going to run out of work any time soon.”
Thanks for reading!
The big news this week was the sudden appearance of Notes, Substack’s rather blatant Twitter alternative. I’ve been poking at it and have been pleasantly surprised - so far, at least.
I see it as an optional extension of this newsletter. A way to get to know other writers and readers better, and to share some behind-the-scenes stuff. For example, I’ve been using it as an excuse to do daily practice sketches like this:
Quite pleased with that. Maybe doing a comic isn’t as far off as I’d thought? Still, these little sketches are not something I’d want to be clogging up your email inboxes with every day, but Notes is the perfect place for short form and image-based mini-updates.
Critically, Notes’ algorithm and feed is based on which writers we follow. So far, this has created a much more vibrant, interesting and relevant space for discussion. There’s none of the usual social media pseudo-psychoanalytical bullshit, with algorithms trying and failing to understand ‘intent’. It’s simpler and also cleverer: it knows I like reading specific writers, and it helps me read more of their stuff and find people like them.
It all depends on how it develops over time, of course. One to watch, for sure.
Here are some more time-limited book giveaways which I’m taking part in and which might be of interest:
Author notes
It’s always fun to see Clarke and Holland bumping heads. This chapter provided lots of opportunities to explore their characters in more detail.
There’s a lot of fun in having the narrator (in this case, Clarke) think one thing, and then have the other character throw in a counterpoint in their dialogue. That ongoing juxtaposition is like a catalyst for revealing both of their characters more rapidly. This is why I love dialogue scenes - the contrasting opinions can reveal stuff about characters indirectly, rather than having to be stated through inner monologue or other, clunkier means.
I do wonder whether references to earlier storylines pay off for readers as much as they do for me as a writer. My sense is that they make the setting feel more real - especially as the Triverse story is playing out in approximately real time. ‘Last year’ to the characters is more-or-less ‘last year’ to us, as well. I published the original kengto storyline in March 2022, so the collective memory among long-term readers will be operating in a similar fashion to the characters.
There’s something rather fun about that.
There are some other bits of world building and background details in this chapter that’ll pop back up down the line. Keep your eyes peeled! :)
See you next week.
Holland and Clarke were entertaining this chapter. I like seeing characters actively work to piece things together, so them discussing the context of the attack compared to the previous one was enjoyable.
That referendum Clarke didn't catch can, in no way ever, cause problems down the line.
Ugh. Kind of assumed poor Vieter was killed. Poor, poor patsy. Disabled and going to jail is certainly no fun for him. Still, perhaps he can be a useful source of information.
Holland is SUCH a prick, he's much more enjoyable to deal with when Clarke is viewpoint. No medical care, indeed. I'm sure, overall, Palinor medicine (for those who can afford treatment, of course) is superior to Mid-Earth's. If you have people who can manipulate brain chemistry to provide subtle directional cues in battle, getting flesh to mend, in comparison, is gross manipulation (literally, depending on the wound) and child's play.