Collectibles

Lola lays it all out on the table. Literally.

The Triverse is
Mid-Earth, an alternate 1980s London
Max-Earth, a vision of the 26th century
Palinor, where magic is real

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Previously: Lola Styles has been bringing her former colleagues up-to-date on her activities in Palinor. They’re about to get more than one surprise…

Addis Ababa.
1980. February.

“Jesus H Christ,” Holland said, pushing himself reluctantly to his feet and groaning as if he’d been sat there for days. “This might be better if someone had brought me a beer, but I didn’t travel across half the solar system for Lola Styles’ autobiography.” He crossed the room from the corner where he’d been lurking and took one of the cups of coffee from the table, where Detective Birhane had just poured a round.

Standing with her arms crossed and a frown almost as crossed, Lola sighed. “Frank, there’s a lot to explain. It’s complicated.”

“OK, but it’s all setup,” he complained. “Do I give a shit about Professor Pavlova? No. Am I happy that you escaped from Bruglia, and are standing before us? Well, sure. But, fuck, I don’t need to know about all your little scampering elf friends.” He took a sip of the coffee and appeared to almost retch. “Shit me, what is this? Coffee or mud?”

“I rather like it,” Chakraborty said, before Holland could continue. “It’s thick.”

“Thank you, Detective Chakraborty,” Birhane said, nodding gratefully and sipping from his own cup. “It’s a more traditional method. One of the concourse cafés specialises in it.”

“I’m sorry,” Holland said, pacing the room and gesticulating with one arm. “I didn’t mean to give the impression that I give a shit about coffee and would like to have an entire fucking conversation about it. How about we try not to get distracted? Can we try that as a group?” He pointed to Chakraborty and Kaminski, then to Clarke, and to himself. “And let’s not forget, that none of us are detectives any more. Our Ethiopian friend here is the only one of us with an actual job.”

The man was insufferable. At least that hadn’t changed. Clarke was still processing everything Lola had said, but he felt compelled to at least stand up for his own reputation. “I am, in fact, still a detective, Holland,” he said.

“Private dick. Wow.” Holland looked at Lola like a dog begging for scraps. “Come on, why are we here? Other than a lovely reunion. Like I say, I’m happy you’re not dead, I really am, but give me a break.”

Clarke was fitting the pieces together. At first presuming that Lola had been able to reach Mid-Earth due to the Palinese rebels taking over the Atlantic portal, he was now thinking it wasn’t quite that. She’d been at the heart of that particular rebellion. He’d read the name ‘Krystyan’, or heard it somewhere. Perhaps in a anti-terrorism report in those final months of the SDC, just before their lives all got flipped upside down. The leader of the so-called Owkehu, a dispersed collection of loosely affiliated insurgents that had been blamed for the kengto larvae incident at the portal station back in 1974. That report would have come down from Scotland Yard after Lola was already posted to Bruglia, so there was a good chance it never reached her desk.

They’d all had to make the best of it since leaving London, but Lola had made some particularly odd friends.

“Fair enough,” Lola said, relenting, and pulling something from a rucksack on one of the seats. She unfurled the paper and placed it on the table in front of them all. “This is the New Sangma Museum,” she said, tapping the poorly reproduced photograph. “It’s a treasure trove of artefacts from across the triverse. Half of them stolen, of course, including relics from Palinor.”

Even Holland stayed silent, wondering where she was going.

Another image was pulled from her bag, this time a pencil sketch of a library. “These are the journals of a Palinese wielder from two centuries back. His name was Kaenamor.”

“I know that name,” Kaminski said, holding up his hand as if in a classroom. “Didn’t he have something to do with the Joining in the first place?”

Clarke shook his head. “The Bruglian university always denied any involvement in the opening of the portals. He was one of the lecturers who died in the blast.”

“Yeah,” Lola said, “he was the one that created the portals in the first place and linked our worlds together.”

Holland held out a hand in protest. “Hold on, sister, that’s a very confident claim you just made.”

“Most of his laboratory was destroyed when the portals opened, except for some of his books. In the early days of the Joining, nobody knew what was going on, and some of his journals went missing.”

Smiling, Clarke folded his arms across his chest. “And now they’re in the New Sangma Museum?”

Lola pointed at him excitedly, as if he’d won a prize. “That’s it!”

Holding his hands to his head, Holland turned away from them all and uttered a low moan. “Why are we talking about a museum? What about your professor that you rescued? Are you going to tell us what that was all about?”

She blinked a few times, as if forgetting where she was. “Oh, right. Simova was one of the consultants on the Yvette Field case. He oversaw her surgery, did some of it himself.”

That caught Holland’s attention. “Field? The schoolgirl attack that was blamed on a koth?”

“The same. It was Professor Simova who got her back to being halfway healthy.”

“Huh,” Holland said, turning the information over in his head. “I always wondered what happened to her.”

Kaminski laughed, a disparaging sound rather than one of humour. “You didn’t even look into it?”

“Case was closed,” Holland said with a shrug. “None of my business after that.”

Shifting in his seat, Clarke cleared his throat. He’d had enough of tangents for the day. “Why was he on the run? What did he know?”

“He’d sent Yvette Field back to Mid-Earth once she was recovered, at least physically,” Lola said. “Turns out he was in a hurry to get her off Palinor. What he didn’t report at the time was that he’d detected signs of wielding ability in her. Very small, very latent. Nothing that she could use, or even be aware of. But a flicker, that shouldn’t have been there.”

There was a stunned silence in the room. Birhane whistled, long and low. Pinching the bridge of his nose, Clarke took a deep breath, trying to understand the implications. “She’d had that from the start? And it become apparent as soon as she was taken to Palinor?”

“Not according to Simova. It was only after the surgery, and the rebonding processes. Field was extensively wounded from the attack and would have died on Mid-Earth. She was the first to receive treatment that combined Mid-Earth surgery with Palinese magic. Everyone was very excited at the time, but the program was shut down once portal travel got restricted.”

“Hold on,” said Chakraborty, leaning back in her chair and lifting her feet onto the table. “Are you saying this girl could do magic?”

Lola shook her head. “Not properly, no. She wasn’t even aware of any of this. It was only in Simova’s tests that he detected some latent ability. It was unexpected, an accident. But it upended everything we know about how wielding works. It’s always been limited to humans born on Palinor, with multi-generational Palinese heritage. Aen’fa can’t do it, koth only wield in a passive manner. Nobody from Mid-Earth or Max-Earth had ever demonstrated any kind of aptitude.”

If true, it would be a paradigm shift. Clarke recognised that immediately. “Was it the surgery, then?”

“That was Simova’s theory. He didn’t include it in his reports, and got Field back to Mid-Earth ASAP.”

“Why?” asked Chakraborty.

Holland sneered. “Because everyone would want a piece of her if they’d known. She’d have been chopped up into little pieces to try to figure out how to do it again. To make it more effective.”

“Not just that,” Lola said. “This knowledge would upend the fabric of Palinese society. There’s a lot of pride in being the only people in the triverse able to wield magic. This discovery would suggest that maybe they’re not quite so unique. And remember, wielding abilities are inseparable from most Palinese religions. It’s all intertwined. And if this is possible, then perhaps aen’fa could regain their wielding abilities, too. Everything changes.”

“Wait,” Kaminski said, frowning, “aen’fa can do magic?”

“Not any more. Legend has it that they could, a long time ago.”

“‘Legend’?” Holland snorted. “Give me a break. So what happened? Simova got found out?”

“Someone stumbled on his research notes. He wasn’t popular at the university anyway. Didn’t kiss the ring of the Chancellor nearly enough. So they decided he should have a little accident. Instead, his attacker was killed and Simova had to leave the city. That’s when we picked him up.”

Clarke abruptly pushed back his chair and got to his feet. His heart was hammering. “So we’ve got recorded evidence of conspiracy within the Joint Council. You’ve got evidence that everything the university says and does is a pack of lies.” He looked at his friends, at his colleagues. “Is it enough?”

“I was surprised you hadn’t already released the recordings of Hutchinson, once you’d made it to Max-Earth.”

He shook his head. “Miller was dead. The recording on its own wasn’t enough, and it was too old. We needed a proper witness. Recorded evidence is too easily faked. Especially with the government back in London — they’d just dismiss it as fake news.” The data card has been uploaded to Justin’s core as soon as they’d got to Max-Earth. It was safe, should the perfect opportunity arise for them to use it.

“Does the Field girl know about any of this?” Holland looked like he was taking matters seriously for the first time. For a moment, it looked to Clarke like the other man actually cared about something.

“Not as far as I know,” Lola said, with a shake of her head. “The whole point of trying to take out Simova was to keep this quiet. The rebels are sitting on it for now.”

“The rebels,” Clarke said, leaning his hands on the back of his seat. “They took back the Atlantic portal station. That’s presumably how you managed to get back to Mid-Earth? The London portals are still shut down.”

Lola smiled. “It’s a bit more complicated than that, but yes.” She hesitated, seemingly wanting to say more. For the first time, Clarke wished that the others weren’t in the room; perhaps she would open up if they could speak privately, just the two of them.

“Alright,” Holland said, “come on then: why’s there a pretty picture of a fucking museum on the table? What’s so important about some old diaries?”

“We need those missing journals,” she said. “We think they contain information vital to the rebellion, and also to everyone in the triverse. They could change everything.”

Clarke looked over to Holland, who returned his glance. Holland raised his eyebrows and flicked his thumb in Lola’s direction. “Could change everything, Clarke. Was your partner always this dramatic?” He started clapping. “A plus for your drama lessons, Styles.”

She ignored him, looked instead to Clarke, then over to Kaminski and Chakraborty, and finally to Birhane, who was leaning against the wall — observing quietly, saying little. “There are four active portals. The two in London here on Mid-Earth. One goes to Palinor, the other to Max-Earth. There’s another here in Addis, which goes to Max-Earth. And the final one is in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, which goes to Palinor.” She took a breath. “But there are two more, which have always been there, but they’ve never worked. One is in Bruglia, the other in London on Max-Earth. Dormant portals, that don’t lead anywhere.”

“They’ve always given me the creeps,” Kaminski said, shuddering.

“They don’t work because Kaenamor’s spell was never completed. If they worked, it’s likely they’d provide a direct link between Palinor and Max-Earth.”

“That seems like a bit of a guess,” Holland said. “Why would you think that?”

“I know people who have studied this their whole lives. Simova is an expert in portal physics. And that’s not all. We think we can complete the spell, and get those portals working.”

Groaning, Clarke walked away from the table. It was all too much. One wild claim after another. He’d hoped for a peaceful reunion, a moment where they could all be together without having the weight of three worlds on their shoulders. Apparently that wasn’t an option. “A direct link between Palinor and Max-Earth would cut London out of the picture. Mid-Earth would no longer by the central hub for travel and trade.”

“That is a startling thought,” Birhane said, the sound of his voice surprising everyone in the room. “And not a little concerning. The UAC has benefited greatly from our unique link with Max-Earth.”

Holland was laughing. “That would seriously take the wind out of Earth First’s sails. The empire’s been propped up by the Joint Council for decades.”

Lola’s words were catching in Clarke’s mind. “You said ‘we think we can complete the spell’,” he said. “Who is ‘we’?”

“My associates. The ones who rescued me.”

“Owkehu?”

She blinked, a few too many times. “Some have used that name. We try to avoid labels. It makes us vulnerable.”

Lola Styles, the rebel. Lola Styles, the Palinese terrorist. His fears were realised, then.

“None of this works without Kaenamor’s journals,” she said, trying to move past the awkward moment. “That’s why I need your help. All of you. I need you to help me steal them from the museum.”

Another silence, broken only by the chorus of thunks as their jaws hit the floor, one after another.

Detective Birhane was the first to speak. “You do know I am still a serving police officer, yes?”

“You also know about what’s happening with the Joint Council. You know about the rogue AI they’ve constructed. Why do you think every country’s economies are tanking except for the Kingdom of Great Britain, the Bruglian city state and some select trillionaires on Max-Earth? You know this is bigger and more important than anything else.”

“Before we all get carried away,” Holland said, holding up his hands, “can you please just tell us why you’ve got blue and red hands? I really can’t wait any longer.”

“That’s fair,” she said. “It’s hard to talk about, even now. But you need to know everything. It happened when we visited a town called Lairn.”

Anyone for coffee?

---

References

There’s a bunch of stuff mentioned in this chapter, which links back to earlier stories Here we go:

• Prologue: Two Hundred Years Earlier (September 2021) is right back to the very beginning, with the first ever chapter of Tales from the Triverse. That was a long time ago! If you want to know more about Kaenamor’s spell, that’s the one to go for.

• Accusations (May 2022) is the one to re-read for all the details on the Yvette Field case.

• For more on Professor Simova, check out part 2 of Railroad (December 2023).

• Lots more detail on portals in A Modern Assessment of Portal Physics (October 2021). Including this handy diagram:

See, I do plan ahead! I love checking the post dates on these earlier storylines.

Meanwhile.

Lots of new subscribers have arrived over the last month-or-so. Hello to you all! I hope at least some of this makes sense.

Something odd has been happening. There’s been a significant uptick in subscriber growth, and in people arriving from search. If that includes you, do pop down into the comments as I’d love to know what brought you here. Look at that curvy line:

Perhaps there’s been an influx of people to Substack caused by the various seismic political events around the world, which have prompted mass platform migrations? I’m really not sure. I’m not complaining, of course — just curious.

A couple of interesting podcasts for your weekend ears:

• April Dunford wrote a book called Obviously Awesome about brand positioning. I listened to a podcast interview with her today, and some of the insights are potentially quite interesting for anyone writing a newsletter, or publishing their own work. TL;DR: it’s not just about having something good to offer — you have to make sure people actually understand what it is.

• Simon Furman is a legendary comics writer. Among many other projects, he wrote the original UK Transformers comic back in the 1980s. He was on the Triple Takeover podcast recently — super nerdy, as you would expect, but there’s a lot of really interesting stuff in there about writing an ongoing serial, and the balancing act of making it up as you go along mixed in with careful planning, while also dealing with stakeholders and editors and sales realities. Worth a listen/watch:

Right, let’s get into some author notes about this week’s chapter…

Author notes

Well. That was a lot of expository dialogue, right? Apologies for that.

I mean, I hope it didn’t feel too much like that. My hope is that Frank Holland is my secret weapon here. He’s a dick, but in this context he’s a useful foil. He’s the grumpy old Muppet man shouting from the balcony. He’s also shouting at me, in a way, complaining about the overly complex narrative structure I’ve built for myself.

Pacing of information is a tricky thing. I don’t know if there’s a right way to do it, but there are lots of wrong ways to do it. Triverse is over three years old by now, so this chapter is very much Lola rolling up her sleeves and saying “right, here’s what’s at stake.” There’s more to come, and the subtleties of some of this are yet to play out, but she’s effectively re-entered the story and shifted it into high gear. The last few months have been a reshuffling of the deck, and she just played the first card.

Something I slightly regret is the staging of these scenes. I’ve basically ended up in an airport waiting lounge, which in retrospect isn’t the most thrilling setup. Then again, there’s a lot of dense info being revealed, so having a simple framing perhaps helps with the focus. Lola’s flashbacks are also a lot to take in, so having a relatively static present day scene is a decent tonal and pacing shift.

That’s the hope, at least. The last three or four months of writing Triverse has probably been the most difficult section since the very beginning. There’s been a lot of necessary plot wrangling, but I’ve tried to do it in a way that is rooted in character, and feels legitimate and resonant. It’s not easy! And I’ve no idea if it’s worked. It’ll be one of those things that is easier to assess in retrospect, once the whole shape of Triverse is down on the page.

So, lots to think about and theorise over in this chapter. I’ll have more to say in future weeks. Let me know what you thought about all the new developments. 👇