The Triverse is
Mid-Earth, an alternate 1970s London
Max-Earth, a vision of the 26th century
Palinor, where magic is real
Previously: A group of koth celebrating at a pub late one night is interrupted by a police bullet killing one of them. This is not going to go well for anyone.
London.
1974. November.
The koth’s blood sprayed across the faces of their friends. The body slumped to the ground, quite dead, tail still twitching. The other two koth were momentarily too startled to react, then the smaller one knelt down and cradled the head of the fallen.
Constable Marie Pensthorpe jumped out of the police vehicle, drawing her weapon. “Shit, what the hell did you do, Jones?”
Still aiming his smoking gun in the direction of the koth, Constable Max Jones tried to find the words but found himself unable, his mouth opening and closing mutely. He felt his arm begin to shake, the one taking the weight of the weapon. The hand with the trigger finger. He’d fired a shot. Why had he fired a shot? He blinked, then blinked again, trying to think, trying to get it straight in his head.
The larger koth, still standing, roared in anguish, spines extending along their arms as they dropped down into a threatening stance, like a dinosaur preparing to pounce.
Why had he fired? Jones shook his head, then realised he was still pointing his weapon at the three koth across the street. Or, two koth. One of them was already dead. He lowered the weapon. He’d not meant to fire, had he?
“That’s fucked up, Jones,” said Constable Philip Scarra, putting a hand on his shoulder and squeezing. “Ace shot, though, right between the eyes. You know koth have reinforced skull around the sides? But right between the eyes is a vulnerability. You got it right on target. Pop!”
Scarra. He’d been whispering in Jones’ ear, warning him about the koth, telling him to watch out, how you can always tell when a koth is about to attack by their posture, and especially if they start belching smoke or fire. That one across the street had done just that - it had clearly been a threat. All three of them had been advancing on the police vehicle’s position.
“It’s fine, Jones,” Scarra said, patting him on the back. “We’ll go with self-defence. We can all corroborate, right Pensthorpe?”
She nodded. “Nobody messes with the SDC.”
“Yeah - oh, shit.” Scarra was suddenly all business, taking his own weapon from his shoulder and lifting it into position. Jones refocused just in time to see the pub door bang open and an endless swarm of koth pile out onto the street, all snarls and roars and cries of anger.
There must have been at least twenty of them.
He turned to Pensthorpe, who was aiming a camera instead of her gun. “What are you doing?”
“Documenting,” she said, winking.
“Stand down,” Scarra shouted. “There’s no need for further bloodshed. Return inside, please.” He adjusted his weapon, and Jones could see he was aiming it at one of the younger koth. “Get your gun up, Jones,” Scarra hissed at him, “you want to be torn apart?”
The noises from the crowd were terrifying. Not like a human mob, which could be intimidating enough as it was, but closer to a pack of animals. Apex predators gathering for the kill. Jones realised in that moment that for all his training and arsenal, there was nothing he could do against several angry koth. He wanted to go back, to unload his weapon, to take the bullet out before he’d fired it.
Why had he pulled the trigger? It had been an accident. No, not that. Not an accident. Self-defence, that was it. Not an accident - that made him sound incompetent, like it was his fault. It needed to be the koth’s fault. Everyone knew how dangerous they were, especially after the attack earlier in the year on the restaurants. That’s when Jones had killed his first koth. He’d been hailed a hero. He’d saved his squad, and all the nearby civilians. He’d even saved that other koth, whatever his name was, who had been involved in the fight. Why couldn’t this be just like that?
He heard Scarra calling for backup over the vehicle’s radio. It wouldn’t arrive in time.
“Quiet, all of you!” came a shout, louder than all the others, cutting through the roaring and screaming. It was an older voice, the sound of a sword being forged. The koth fell to silence, though their anger was still evident. “These police officers are not worth it,” said the elder koth, moving to the front of the pack. “They are animals. Leave them be. Do not waste your fire on them. We must look after our own.” He crouched beside the dead koth and performed some sort of gesture that Jones couldn’t catch.
“Fuck, that was close,” Pensthorpe said.
Scarra laughed. “Who knew there were so many of the bastards in that pub?”
Jones felt his trigger finger twitch.
The next day.
Flashbulbs lit up the drab meeting room. DCI Miller had called the press conference early to get out ahead of the papers. This kind of thing could spiral quickly if it was left to fester.
“Thank you all for coming,” he began. “As you already know, late yesterday evening there was a tragic incident in London which resulted in an officer discharging their firearm. During the confrontation a koth was unfortunately shot. Our condolences to their family.”
He took a breath, made sure he was looking suitably saddened.
“Any incident of this nature is of course regrettable and a full investigation will be carried out to better understand the circumstances. For some context, as I’m sure there will be questions, I would like to present some footage shot at the scene.” He signalled to the technician, who fiddled with the television in the corner.
Grainy video appeared on the screen, showing a roaring, shouting mob of koth outside the pub the previous night. Pensthorpe had captured a good angle. “As you can see, the situation was extremely sensitive by the time the officers arrived. Despite efforts to calm those at the scene, the koth present discharged their fire breath towards the officers, prompting them to take defensive action. All of this footage and statements from the officers and civilians at the scene will be submitted for review.”
There was a chatter of excited voices from the journalists present. He could see all the usual faces, ranging from the annoying to the supportive. Miller pointed to one of them. “Yes, Jonah?”
“This is the latest in a string of violent incidents involving koth. Are we looking at a growing problem within the koth population?”
Miller frowned and clasped his hands before him. “It is true that we’ve had several such incidents. The horrific killing of DC John Callihan two years ago. The attack on the West End earlier this year. The assault on an innocent schoolgirl a year ago. But I would emphasise that these are all isolated incidents. The koth community makes many valid contributions to our society, and the behaviour of a few bad actors shouldn’t tarnish the rest.”
Emma Matthews put her hand up. Miller ignored her, but she tried calling out her question anyway. “Detective Miller. The Yvette Field case involved a human assailant. Lakshi, the koth that was initially accused, was released without charge.”
He pointed to another journalist, Trevor, who was usually on-side, but without being too obvious about it. “We’re only a month away from the referendum on permanent portal suspension. Do you see these rising tensions as being related to that? Or having an impact on it?”
Miller took a deep breath and leaned on the lectern. “Trevor, nothing we do exists in a vacuum. But obviously the Met police and the SDC remain politically neutral. We exercise the law, not individual opinions. Any rise in violence will be dealt with accordingly, swiftly and in order to protect citizens in London and around the Kingdom.”
“Question,” Emma piped up again, “do you include koth in your definition of ‘citizen’?”
“If there are no further serious questions, then we’ll leave it there,” Miller said. He gestured to the television, still paused on a frame of angry koth faces. “You can all make up your own minds, and the internal investigation will release its findings as soon as possible. Thank you all for coming.”
DC Yannick Clarke sat at his desk in the basement of the Joint Council tower, arms crossed, a grimace of displeasure on his face. The news broadcast finished showing the press conference and switched to the next segment: a piece on the practicalities, or lack thereof, of closing the portals.
The press conference had been a farce. Miller was growing bolder, that was for sure. His answers were a barely coded call to arms to every nutter and arsehole holding a grudge against portal immigrants. He glanced across the office to where Kaminski and Chakraborty were watching on another screen, equally aghast. He knew that Bakker would be in his partitioned office, also watching, also feeling the screws tightening.
They had evidence they could use against Miller and those he was working with, all of those schemers and liars, but it was trapped on a data card that couldn’t be read using shitty, backwards, Mid-Earth technology. And none of them were going to be getting to Max-Earth anytime soon. Clarke had suggested sending it in the mail to Justin, but there was no guarantee it would reach its destination. Odd to think that Justin, the AI itself, was floating in space, unaware of what had transpired with its remotely operated clone. That science fiction stuff made Clarke’s head hurt.
And so they were stuck in a stalemate, everyone pretending that everything was fine, nobody actually doing anything, but all parties quite aware of the precariousness of the situation.
Meanwhile, the city was going to hell in a hand-basket.
Golding was somewhere with his shooter squad, debriefing them and still trying to figure out what had happened at the pub the previous night. Scarra, Jones and Pensthorpe had closed ranks. They shouldn’t have been anywhere near that part of town. Golding seemed like an OK fellow, and was probably furious about his elite team getting caught up in something so public.
Clarke already knew where this one was going. There would be riots in the streets. If not that day, then the next. Or the one after. Before the end of the week, for sure.
What was it Styles had written in her last letter? ‘Sometimes you find yourself in a situation where there are no good options.’ That seemed about right. She was a clever girl.
No good options. Sooner or later, they were going to have to pick one of the bad ones.
Thank you for reading!
Last year I read The Cull, a comic by
being serialised via her newsletter. I’m now catching up on Black Cloak, her other creator-owned title. They are both very good. Something I find especially intriguing is how different the art style is between the books: both gorgeous in their own way.I was already intrigued by the online serialisation of the books, given that they are also being released in comic shops by Image Comics. You don’t really see simultaneous online and traditional publication of prose fiction, but it seems to be very much alive in comics.
This is a long-winded way of saying that you should really listen to this interview with Kelly over on SKTCH’s Off Panel podcast. She has many clever things to say about serialised storytelling, chapter lengths, release schedules and so on.
Meanwhile,
delivered this memorable line:What I do know, for shore, is that I am tired of writing about all of this. If you gaze into the navel long enough, you end up at the back, right above your butt, smelling your own farts.
It’s from a challenging piece about winning, losing and the bits in-between:
What else? So, I’ve got more videos coming up, a mix of Scrivener and Substack-specific guides. Hopefully they’ll be useful. I also have the long-awaited1 investigation into online platforms for writers. Turns out there are a lot. It may yet end up becoming a two-parter.
Does anybody else reading this do a Park Run? I’ve just started (literally: I’ve done it twice) and am finding it quite a joy. Running2 in circles with a bunch of strangers for half an hour3 is a good time. Last week the run was sponsored by the Coop supermarket chain, which promised to give everyone a free brunch at the end of the run. Excellent, I thought. Maybe some kind of nutritious bar to replenish our energy, or a healthy fruit drink, or even just some nice fruit that could be eaten while warming down. An apple, or a banana. That sort of thing.
Nope.
It was an avocado.
They gave everyone an avocado.
I mean, sure, I’ll take a free avocado any day of the week, but in practical terms it just meant that I had to awkwardly hold an avocado all the way on the walk home, avoiding the accusatory stares from strangers who thought I was a weirdo.
In other news, I’ve just started playing Death Stranding for the first time. It’s amazing and very weird. I’m sure I’ll have more to say.
Author notes
Yes, the ‘hell in a handbasket’ line is cribbed from Babylon 5. Garibaldi’s line seemed appropriate given the context, and Clarke’s general grumpiness aligns fairly well with Garibaldi’s.
I’ve had this storyline in the ideas folder for years, pretty much since I started Triverse. This isn’t a story which presents the police as easy heroes, and having one of them make a very serious, split second bad decision was something I wanted to explore. Inserting the rapid response armed squad at the start of this season made it a possibility
A big inspiration behind Triverse is The Wire. The episode in which an officer shoots an unarmed man still haunts me: it’s such a good probing of those decisions we make in life that can’t be reversed. Hopefully for most of us they’re not quite as definitive and serious as taking someone’s life by accident, but we’ve all had those moments, to a greater or lesser degree. There’s a lot of regret floating around in this story at the moment. Every character is being dragged down into the swamp.
This chapter has a surprising number of call backs to earlier stories. In some ways Miller’s press conference functions as a mini-recap. That’s one of the things I love about writing online serials: the way separate threads can slowly weave together, sometimes on purpose and sometimes by happy accident. Usually a bit of both. I wrote about my process in detail last year over here:
Looking back over that piece, it still seems pretty accurate to my method. It also demonstrates the benefits of having a themes-first approach to storytelling. I didn’t design the plot to have multiple threads of discrimination against koth that would build up to where we are now. But I did know that discrimination was going to be a major theme of Triverse. I knew that responsibility and corruption would be strong concepts throughout. That made it easy to prioritise certain stories above others, and now in retrospect it can look more planned than it actually was.
The thematic spine keeps everything aligned and pointing in the same direction, without me needing to precisely plot every fine detail months ahead.
Right, that’s me done for today. Thanks again for reading.
Photo reference by The Climate Reality Project on Unsplash
By which I mean, I’ve taken ages to write it.
Jogging.
I hope to get this down.
Oof. In Triverse it's more common for you to time jump on chapter breaks, so I was expecting this chapter to start with something more like a press conference, or the officers in debriefing. The style break very much worked in this chapter.
Dammit, Jones, you had an opportunity to do the right thing, and let your partners lead you astray. Oh, well. It has to happen for the author to rachet up tension for the arc, but I'm disappointed in you. I hope you change your mind and come clean down the road. It'll be too late for the immediate consequences, but...
You're very lucky one koth had reason. Otherwise there'd be another three wounded/dead koth, three dead cops, and one melted car.
Fucking Miller. Making Millers look bad.
A video camera circa 1973/4... Unless there's Max-Earth tech, we're looking at a 1/3" CCD, going to, probably, a 3/4" tape. The zoom is likely 5x or 10x and the low light fidelity will be crap. We'll assume Pensthorpe framed her shot tightly enough to not show the ALREADY SHOT koth in the situation "as [they] found it." What I'm saying here is a combination of crap footage and creative camera angles means no one will pick up on the lie. I hope I'm wrong and someone on the "hero side" finds the clues in the recording.
Ah, Clarke. You don't know Miller's got the drop on you.
JMS didn't invent the idiom "hell in a handbasket" (the origins are unclear, but my favorite theory is the French Revolution - a phrase used for victims of the guillotine), but it's a fun one.
Sigh. This arc is just gonna get grimmer, isn't it, Simon?
Free avocado. 🤣🤣🤣