The Triverse is
Mid-Earth, an alternate 1970s London
Max-Earth, a vision of the 26th century
Palinor, where magic is real
Previously: Tensions rise across the triverse. Two hundred years of relative calm are starting to fray at the edges. This chapter is probably a pretty good jumping-on point, FYI.
The small television in the corner of the SDC office delivered the news.
“Following these disturbing reports, and while the police carry out a detailed investigation, we will be temporarily restricting portal access.” The Home Secretary was speaking from a podium in the government press room. “I want to be clear. This does not affect people from using the portals. Humans, koth, aen’fa and other Palinese races are welcome in the triverse, and always will be.
“These measures are limited and specific. While we will not have the full details until the police investigation is complete, it is already clear that the altercation in London was caused by so-called host bodies, operated remotely by artificial intelligences from Max-Earth. Whether this was intentional or the result of some kind of system error or malfunction is yet to be determined. Out of an abundance of caution, therefore, we will not be permitting portal transit for artificial beings.
“Please be assured that this is a temporary measure and is intended to protect the public from any further disturbances. On a related note, I have been informed by London Water that repairs to the water supply in affected neighbourhoods will be complete by the end of the day.
“This unfortunate incident is another reminder that it is the responsibility of all of us to maintain vigilance. If you see something untoward, something that shouldn’t be there, notify a police officer at once. See it, speak it, fix it. No questions, thank you.”
The programme switched over to the studio, where Nigel Maxwell was about to be interviewed for comment. Kaminski walked up and switched off the television. He lit a cigarette and glanced back towards where Clarke was seated.
Leaning back in his chair, Clarke folded his arms. Not good. He thought about Styles, on the other side of the Palinor portal. Suddenly she felt very far away indeed. A portal was like stepping through a door: instantaneous and effortless, nausea aside. Palinor and Max-Earth usually seemed like they were just around the corner, ticket prices aside, but it only took one restriction to put a permanent barrier between him and Styles.
Kaminski called it, whispering the details to each of them before their shifts ended. The old building at the corner of Stamford and Coin looked the same as ever; which was to say that it looked neglected and born from a regrettable period of architectural history.
Clocking the street in both directions, Clarke pushed open the door and slipped inside. The place was dark and a layer of dust lay on the stairs, imprinted into which he could see several overlapping footprints. Climbing the stairs, he entered into the abandoned office, finding himself surprised to not be greeted by Robin in her usual sing-song voice. Clarke had worked in that room for a long time; too long, by any count. He crossed to the inner door and past the small kitchen area, then took the stairs to the upper floor. It was still home to an odd assortment of stored items, from ancient filing cabinets to mannequin torsos. Evidence of the building’s many faces.
The others were already there, waiting in the storage room at the back. DI Bakker, looking like he hadn’t slept for days, sat on an old plastic chair. Kaminski and Chakraborty, standing awkwardly. Just the four of them, with Styles away on Palinor. The plan had been for her to be their eyes on the other side of the portal but it hadn’t really paid off yet. She’d been too busy building her network, getting a feel for the place.
“Good,” Bakker said. “Let’s summarise. Clarke, you first.”
It was the first time they’d managed to all be in the same room without being observed since the AI incident, due to their shifts rarely aligning. Clarke wondered briefly whether someone was manipulating the roster deliberately. “In my report on the 999 call from Sterling Court I stated that it was a prank, that the flat was empty. DC Holland corroborated that. He didn’t see inside - What you don’t know, because I haven’t had a chance to talk to you openly, is that I found Justin in there. Smashed to pieces.”
“Oh, shit,” Chakraborty said. “Were they involved in the AI incident? Was it them?”
“Yeah, they were involved. In as much as they got in a fight with another AI. Someone at the Joint Council tower. Chased them through the streets - Justin did their best to steer it away from people.”
“Wow,” Kaminski murmured, “robots fighting robots. This is very bad.”
“It certainly left a hole in the city’s sewers,” Bakker said, “not to mention several building rooftops.”
“No,” Kaminski said, “I mean this is apocalypse-level bad.”
Clarke raised his eyebrows. “How so?”
Kaminski looked at them all and grimaced. “What, have none of you read any triverse horror? Max-Earth robots invading through the portal to enslave us all?”
“I was a little old for that,” Clarke said.
“Whatever. This is bad.”
“AIs are designed not to do this,” Chakraborty said. “So are we talking about our new AI? The one we think they’ve been building?”
Bakker got to his feet. “We have to assume that. Clearly we failed to stop them constructing it. What else do we know?”
“Lord Hutchinson is involved,” Clarke said. “Justin overheard him talking in a meeting where the AI was present. Also, Miller.”
Bakker made a sound at the back of his throat. “DCI Miller?”
“Fuck, I knew that guy was a rat,” Kaminski said, whistling through his teeth.
“He’s a sleazeball,” Chakraborty said, “but bent? Really? Are we sure?”
“He was there,” Clarke said. “If we trust Justin, then we need to assume that Miller’s on the take. Or directly involved. One or the other.”
“Good job we didn’t bring him in on this,” Bakker said.
“You’re good judge of character, guv,” Kaminski said, grinning.
“We’ll see. Did Justin confirm anyone else’s involvement?”
“There were others there, but not identified. They were talking about disrupting the elections.”
Kaminski held up a hand, then reached into his jacket.
“No smoking in here,” Bakker said, holding up a hand.
“Don’t worry,” Kaminski said, pulling a small book from an inside pocket. “I’ve been reading this. The Plunge, by John Pierson.”
Clarke pinched the bridge of his nose. “This isn’t a book club, Zoltan.”
The younger man pointed in the general direction of the old office below. “I found it downstairs. After they’d cleared out most of the place. There were still a couple of desks left, and this was in one of them. I’m pretty sure it was Miller’s old desk.”
“I’ve seen you reading it,” Chakraborty said. “Didn’t know where you got it from.”
“Is this relevant?” Bakker held out a hand and took the book, turning it over in his hands. “What’s it about?”
“It’s kind of a weird half-fiction, half-fact rant about the state of things. It was written a while back, couple of decades maybe. Pierson was a Max-Earth writer. This was his big opus. Panned by most critics, right, but it gained a kind of cult following. It’s like a ‘what if’ examination of how Max-Earth could have been different. The whole thing is angry, all the way through. It’s an argument for militarism, basically. It’s very anti-AI. A return to past glories, bla bla bla.” He took a breath. “Look, I didn’t think too much of it. And it’s quite badly written. But if Miller’s working for the other team, and he was reading this. I don’t know, might be relevant.”
Bakker nodded as he read the blurb on the back of the book. “You think this might be their bible? Some sort of inspiration?”
“I don’t know,” Kaminski said, shrugging. “Words have made people do weird things before, right? Maybe some people took it more seriously than they should have.”
“One other thing,” Clarke said. He produced the data card from a pocket. “Justin stored all of the evidence on this thing. Seems like we don’t have anything here that can read it. If we can get it back to Max-Earth they’d be able to do something with it.”
“Then we have a case,” Bakker said. “Something concrete we can actually do. We need to find a way to get that card back through the portal, without it being detected and without raising suspicions.”
To the west of central the atmosphere thinned, the smog lifted and the river stank a little less. It was where the high class bars and restaurants of London congregated, along a couple of wide streets paved with money. It felt like early summer, the evening warm and pleasant but without the humidity that would arrive in only a couple of months. The end of the week had brought out the office workers and the families, enjoying meals and drinks, many of the establishments spilling their tables out onto the broad pavements.
Smells of food from across the triverse drifted on the air, and sounds of chatter and laughter echoed up the sides of the buildings. The affluent and the middle classes mingled together, the former choosing to feel momentarily part of wider society and the latter excited to rub shoulders with the rich and famous. There were a couple of koth among the patrons, while the staff were a mix of aen’fa and human. It was an evening of respite for all concerned, away from the constant deluge of bad news, and the worries about the recent mad AI scare, or the terrorist attacks that had so far defined the year.
There was no real warning. No angry shouting or declarations. The koth’s arrival from the skies was silent, as they swooped down with leathery wings outstretched. Even before their hooves touched the cobblestones they had shot a plume of fire into the entrance of a restaurant. Glass shattered. People screamed.
They walked down the street, sending blast after blast in seemingly random directions. There was a shocked pause followed by a chaotic scramble as everyone attempted to flee, inevitably falling over one another. Word spread down the street and bars emptied. At one end a crush began to form.
The koth continued, saying nothing, attacking anything that moved.
London was aflame.
Thanks for reading!
Do I say “another busy week” every week? It feels a bit like that.
A big hello and thank you to the new paid subscribers this month. You are amazing! I’d assumed a while back that I would never get paid for my writing, so I’m very pleased to have you all prove me wrong. It’s important not just for me but for all writers to know that there are options and paths to tread.
MEANWHILE. Here’s probably my favourite thing this week:
The more I look at it, the more perfect it becomes.
If you missed my dissection of serial storytelling modes earlier in the week, it’s well worth hopping into now to check out the amazing follow-up comments. Seriously, I learned so much from the comments on this one. In fact, I’m thinking of a follow-up post as there’s so much to digest. Take a look:
I’ve been busily sketching out something of a business plan for this publication, trying to figure out how to expand it and offer cool new things without breaking myself. In short, I want to be able to deliver online courses and produce a regular podcast.
Step 1 is to acquire a time machine. 🤔
Finally, let’s try something called video. It’ll catch on any day now:
Author notes
New storyline! From this first part I’d say it’s not evident where the storyline is going to go - that’ll emerge more directly next week.
One of the unfortunate aspects of writing crime fiction, even one as heightened and fantastical as Triverse, is that a lot of story threads can be inspired by real world events. It’s then about trying to navigate and explore those events in a sensitive manner. I’ve mentioned it before, but my focus with Triverse stories is always to emphasise the victim over the criminal - hence we rarely follow up on the perps after the main storyline is done.
This chapter turned out to be one of those ‘pause and reflect’ moment, in the process becoming unexpectedly a useful place to hop on for new readers. I mean, I think it’d still be a bit overwhelming, but the police covert meeting does a nice summary of core plot events, and the television broadcast at the start brings us up-to-date conveniently.
Given the sprawling nature of Triverse, and its anthological nature, I think it’s occasionally useful to plant a flag and declare “this is where we are.” Think of chapters like this to be a checkpoint of sorts, if it were a computer game. After all, the conspiracy plot has been running in the background for actual years - even regular readers who have been here from the start might benefit from a reminder summary.
This is also the first time we’ve had a lot of the core cast in the same room together. This season - since the SDC relocated, basically - has been about change and pulling the team apart in various ways. That, evidently, is a deliberate effort by those pulling the strings just out of sight - so our crew had better get their heads back in the game.
The end of the season is now in sight, incidentally. It’s pretty much downhill all the way now and it’s going to be intense. Put your seat belt on.
Photo by Bruno Martins on Unsplash
As you noted, this is a "catch up" chapter where a lot of our principles get a chance to compare notes, but we get a hint of what that slug, Nigel, has been up to and the introduction of Pierson's book as a hint to bad guy motivation. So the recap, subtly, moves things along.
Muslim ban/AI ban, government too often takes the fear monger response rather than address root cause. Also cuts off Justin's ability to communicate. Getting them that data recording will be a pain.
And we haven't seen a drugged out/coerced koth since the beginning. Yup, I caught the callback. Poor bastard is gonna get gunned down by the SWAT team. Possibly without leaving clues for our heroes...
Why are typos easier to spot on paper? Studies have looked at this. There's a tactile element to paper that isn't present on a screen. Engages more of the brain. Phone/tablet, oh we touch those, but it's smooth glass, not something with texture. Humans retain more information reading from hardcopy. A PC is worse. You may have keyboard/mouse, but they are removed from the screen, creating an abstract "barrier" of sorts. It's also why the text scale issues don't jump out. On screen, even if bounded by blue, that blue is bounded by the rest of your screen, in turn, bounded by the monitor bezel, skewing perception. The monitor image isn't 1:1 scale with the hardcopy, so your graphic instincts jumped in to fill the available room and not leave "dead space."
This is why margin guides are important. Or "safe zone" guides for video. Even though modern TVs/monitors don't have the bezel over scan cutoff of a CRT you just don't want text and logo bugs too flush with the edge. It looks wrong.
I'm expecting quite the battle over Justin's data, guessing the koth attack is being staged by the conspiracy for both election purposes and to further restrict portal usage to keep the data away from Max-Earth.