Loose ends

New story: catching up with old and new characters

Apr 21, 2023

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

Previously: Two hundred years ago portals opened up in central London, connecting Earth to two other dimensions. Hilarity ensued.

Choose a different story

Previous chapter

Bruglia.
3202. Verdant.

Fountain University had its own expansive block of land outside of the city walls of Bruglia, perched atop a red rock mesa that was connected by bridges to the main settlement. The university had shifted its location slightly over the centuries, not least in response to the sudden, destructive opening of two enormous trans-dimensional portals in the year 3000. The Palinor side of the portal station was situated in the ruins of the old university, making for an especially dramatic arrival, while the campus itself had moved to the east, spreading to an archipelago of additional rocky islands.

Lola had visited a couple of times already, during her induction in her first few weeks and more recently for a lecture about the refugee camps that had become semi-permanent in the canyons below the city. That had made for grim listening, and hadn’t been especially well attended.

This visit would be more positive, she hoped. Yvette Field had been released from the medical wing and would be making the portal transit back to Mid-Earth later in the week. Lola wanted to say goodbye.

As she walked the campus, she caught sight of the bombed tower being rebuilt. It was nearly completed, the stone melted and reconstructed almost exactly as it had been previously by the city’s most talented elementalists. The structure was supported by physologist wielders, who manipulated the mass of the tower while the pieces were put in place. Its destruction had been pointless, in terms of material loss, but a class of students had perished in its collapse.

In the centre of the university campus was a garden, uncharacteristically lush and varied for the region. It was challenge enough bringing water to the city in order to sustain the population, without the luxury of gardens. The climate suited Lola, the dry desert air as far from the smog and humidity of London as was possible. Even as the season changed from Frostfield to Verdant, it was still a calmer heat. The temperature increased but she didn’t sweat or find herself short of breath. There may have been a permanent layer of dust in her hair, but she felt clean.

Yvette was sat on a stone bench in the middle of the garden, surrounded by carefully contoured streams and faint golden wisps of stardust that must have been leftovers from a student’s spell. As Lola approached, the teenage girl played with the glowing filaments, which fluttered and dispersed in the air like pollen in a summer’s breeze. Apparently sensing Lola’s arrival, she turned and beamed a smile. “Detective! I’m so pleased you made it.”

“When are you off?” Lola sat on one end of the bench. The stone was cool and smooth to the touch. Yvette’s injuries were now invisible, her body healed in ways that would have been impossible using only Mid-Earth medicine. The girl was a testament to what could be achieved when the triverse worked as one.

“In the morning, early.”

“Looking forward to it?”

Yvette shrugged and looked embarrassed. “I really like it here,” she said. “I didn’t think I would, especially because of why I’m here. But it’s nice. The people are nice. I’m not sure I’m ready to go back to London, but the doctors think I am. And I’m not Palinese, so I can’t stay any longer.”

“You’ll be able to see your friends and family again, Yvette. You’ll adjust quickly. You’ve got some catching up to do.”

The girl looked down at her lap and played with the folds of her dress. “I think it’s also that as long as I’m here, I can pretend that nothing happened. If I’m back in London, if I’m back at school…”

Lola put her hand on the girl’s jittering knee. “You’ll have lots of support. I’ve written to my friends at the SDC. You need anything, anyone gives you any hassle, you just ask for Detective Clarke, understand?”

“Thanks.”

Birds sang, hidden somewhere in the trees and atop the grand arches of the campus. “London can be pretty weird,” Lola said, “but not as weird as you are tough. You just have to promise that you’ll write to me.”

London.
1974. April.

John Hutchinson, member of the House of Lords and leading diplomat for the Kingdom of Great Britain, looked out of the window of his office high above London. The Joint Council certainly had the best damned views in the city, if you were on the right floor.

His intercom beeped. “Your visitors are here, sir.”

“Show them in.”

He straightened his tie and turned to meet the arrivals.

“Lord Hutchinson,” said Chancellor Baltine as he entered, his wiry body and black university robes looking every bit the part, “I have come a very long way for seemingly very little purpose. Please do prove to me that my time has not been wasted.”

“Chancellor,” Hutchinson said, nodding and shaking the man’s hand. “Very good to see you.” He turned to greet the others. “Ambassador Matheson. A pleasure as always. How is your wife?”

“Grumpy as ever,” said the Max-Earth American, his accent strong. “She hates it here. I hate it here. We can’t wait to get back to the future.”

“Yes, well, stay the course, and all that. We’re nearly there.” Hutchinson stared at the third arrival. “And who is this?” He didn’t recognise the startlingly beautiful woman who had walked in with Matheson, which made him immediately uneasy. “This isn’t really the time for new introductions.”

“Ah, don’t worry, Hutchinson,” the American said, irritatingly convivial as always. “This is Eliza. Close assistant of mine. She can be trusted.”

“Interesting to meet you both in person,” Eliza said.

Baltine cleared his throat. “Let’s get down to business, shall we?”

Hutchinson poured each of them a drink into small tumblers. “Point one on the agenda was yours, I believe?”

“Yes,” Baltine said. “I require the suspect in the kengto incident at the portal station to be deported immediately back to Palinor.”

“I see,” Hutchinson said, hissing through his teeth. “Could be awkward.”

“Not as awkward as questions being asked about the rebel movements emerging across Palinor. Believe me, send him back my way and I’ll keep a lid on it. Those insurgents are causing enough trouble for me without a high profile court case across the triverse.”

“Consider it done, then. Perhaps you can do me a favour in return.” Hutchinson consulted his notes, fishing for the name. “The SDC have been grumbling about one ‘Fred Thomas’. No idea who he is, but they want him back. Apparently your city guard have him in custody.”

“I shall make it so.”

Matheson put his glass back on the table with a loud clunk. “What about your SDC, Hutchinson? Why are you so keen to help them out?”

“A favour here and there helps our cause, keeps them on side. Regardless, they’re neutered for now. They can’t fart without me smelling it. We have control of the budget, we still have someone on the inside, and the new recruits are likely sympathetic as well. Don’t need to worry about them any more.”

“We’ll see.” Matheson pointed a finger at him. “Oh, I meant to say, Hutchinson, nice work with that rendition thing last year. I thought you’d blown it by pulling all that attention down on you, but it all just went away, like you said it would. Not sure how you pulled that one off.”

Hutchinson smiled thinly. “If the press or anyone else is getting too sniffy, too inquisitive, you just give them what they want. Sling something even more salacious their way and it’ll take up all the oxygen in the room. Everyone forgets about everything else. People can’t keep hold of much in their heads, you know.”

Eliza laughed, a little too loudly. “It was referred to as a dead cat in the twenty-first century. A classic distraction technique.”

Space. Somewhere between Earth and Mars.
2544. April.

Could Kill had remained in the vicinity of the inner planets since the bombing. The space elevator had required precision repairs to avoid catastrophe and having two megaships in proximity had been useful. With the majority of the work complete and trade having opened up once more, Could Kill had retreated from orbit but had been reluctant to return to the gas giants. Little of political, cultural or social significance happened out there - which ordinarily was what intrigued them the most. Humans choosing to live in the middle of nowhere, in the most difficult conditions still available, deliberately rejecting the abundance of the inners.

Strange creatures.

There was also the possibility of further disruption. After centuries of stability, the humans seemed to be trying to cause a ruckus once again. Perhaps the consequences of the triverse were becoming apparent, two hundred years after opening of the portals. The megaships ran a tight operation, though. Between them, the bombing of the space elevator should not have been possible. They would have seen it coming, especially with Just Enough’s unhealthy obsession with close-quarters observation.

The triverse introduced chaotic blind spots. The Max-Earth dimension was mapped and understood, its many systems projected backward and forward in time via continuously iterative, auto-correcting predictive algorithms. That was how the AIs had first managed to bring peace and prosperity to the Sol system. They saw what was coming and made sure it was good. Philosophically, ethically, the humans had always objected. Practically, emotionally, they acquiesced because the ends justified the means.

Which is how humans had always behaved, but this time the ‘ends’ were, in fact, lovely.

Something was disrupting it. AIs could only function on Mid-Earth for a day or two before suffering from energy degradation. Efforts to create useful quantum batteries in the African Conglomerate had come to nothing. Mid-Earth was only one planet, but was less known than the entire Max-Earth system. No AI had ever reached Palinor. That third universe was dark to their computations.

It felt to Could Kill that someone was using that against them.

For the first time since the superintelligence singularity, Could Kill didn’t know what was going to happen next.

It was all very exciting.

London. Somewhere near Peckham.
1974. April.

A stack of empty, used pizza boxes stood in the corner of the small living space, a monument to a life spiralling. A breadcrumb trail of empty bottles traced the path back to the old sofa upon which Nisha Chakraborty sat, her head lolled back and one leg raised off the floor. She wore loose jogging trouser and a baggy t-shirt. She hadn’t slept for weeks, not properly. Not a sound, rewarding, regenerating sleep.

The beers were done, the wine was done, so she’d moved on to the next bottle in the cupboard. The kind of thing you’re given as a gift and never want to actually drink. Turned out it was quite nice. As far as she could tell. She thought she may have been just a teeny, tiny bit drunk.

Good job she could handle her booze.

It kept the headaches away, at least. A side effect of surviving a major dopur attack was continued nerve damage, prompting migraines and minor, uncontrolled muscle movements. Nothing too dramatic, but it was embarrassing and uncomfortable. Nisha worried about whether it would impact on her ability to do her job, if anyone noticed and brought it up. The alcohol dulled it, chased the pain away. It always had, but now she had the excuse of having been in a coma. No-one could blame her.

Some people got comfy lives. She wasn’t one of them. That was fine; she’d made her peace. Kaminski wanted that for them: thought they could be normal and play at having healthy relationships. Everything she touched went to shit, though, and she didn’t want that for him.

She stared at her hand, which shook nervously. The doctors thought she might regain more accurate motor function over time, but wouldn’t say how much time. She’d always felt like a broken person, since she became a teenager and started rejecting everything her family thought was important. Now she wasn’t just broken inside but was also falling apart outside. Perhaps the dopur attack had made her a more complete person, in that regard.

The last time she’d looked in the mirror her eyes had been set deep and red-rimmed. She was exhausted, but couldn’t sleep. Her body would twitch her awake. Or her mind wouldn’t calm itself sufficiently in the first place.

Ah well. One more drink, then.

Author notes

Turns out I’ve been writing the year date wrong for Palinor-set chapters. It’s all corrected now, and it seems nobody noticed, but oops. I’d accidentally shaved off a century. I’m frankly amazed that more continuity errors don’t creep into my work, given the way I write and publish.

Today’s chapter is something of an interlude. I occasionally throw these in, which stand slightly apart from the ‘detectives investigating’ core of the book. It’s a way to touch base with characters and explore some of the detail around the edges of the story.

In this instalment we get a pivotal meeting between Baltine, Hutchinson and Matheson (oh, and Eliza), the latter being someone we haven’t met before. These are three minor supporting characters who have popped up elsewhere, and whom we might not have expected to be intertwined.

It’s always a challenge to know when and how to reveal critical plot points, especially when there’s an air of mystery involved. As the writer you need to divulge enough to make the story interesting in the first place, but you don’t want to give the entire game away too soon. It’s a tightrope, and it’s only really after the fact that you can judge if you got it right.

This is especially the case with shifting the narrative to these supporting roles. In the gradual revealing of a mystery, should it be done entirely from the perspective of the protagonists? Should the readers be in step with them, with our detectives, or is it OK to give the audience additional context and information? It varies from story to story. With Triverse the canvas is so large that it does require narrative leaps and shifting characters, I think - and that was established from the very first prologue chapter, after all.

In this case, we’re at least halfway through the overall Triverse story. You’ve probably already noticed the story shifting and mutating, and the background plot threads bubbling to the surface more frequently. There’s an acceleration happening, behind-the-scenes at least. The story engine is being powered up, even if we haven’t released the brake yet.

I’ve talked about how I aim to write optimistic fiction, but it probably won’t feel that way for a while.

Photo by JR Harris on Unsplash