Shots fired: Part 4
Facing the past
The Triverse is
Mid-Earth, an alternate 1970s London
Max-Earth, a vision of the 26th century
Palinor, where magic is real
Previously: Koth are protesting on the streets of London. The situation could easily get out of hand and the SDC detectives have been called in to advise…
Suggested soundtrack: anything by Kate Bush.
1971. July.
Another day. Twenty-four hours to trudge through, one after another, feeling more like twice that. The years weighed heavily on Yannick Clarke, manifesting as far more than the sum of his 53 years. He’d become an old person, far earlier than he’d intended. Hell, he’d been old for decades. Failed marriage, failed relationships, failed promotions. There was a time he’d been good at his job, at least, and even enjoyed it, but that was in the past.
The SDC had seemed like a good idea at the time, a decade earlier when he’d signed up to the Commissioner’s fancy new department. Turned out to be a dead end, like everything else.
Three goddamned universes and he couldn’t catch a break in any of them.
He rifled through papers and folders, shuffling them around on his desk in an attempt to look busy. The problem with life, he’d always thought, is that it just kept on going. Not for the people who loved it — those were the fools you always heard about on the news getting hit by a bus, or dying from cancer, or getting into freak kitchen accidents. No, it was people like him that lived forever, blundering along, never having anywhere to go but somehow unable to just…stop. Nothing had changed in the last ten years, other than more wrinkles, less hair and a couple of new notches on his belt.
“Cheer up, Clarke,” came Chakraborty’s voice as she sauntered past. “It might not happen.”
He looked up in time to see her wink. “That’s what I’m afraid of,” he muttered.
She turned and came back to his desk. “Come on, you’ve got a new partner starting tomorrow, right? What’s his name?”
“Callihan. John Callihan.”
“Right. New partner, new start. Fresh blood, and all that! You never know, he might be a nice guy.”
“Let’s hope not, for his sake.”
Chakraborty rolled her eyes and continued on her way to the corkboard wall at the far end of the office. She had a good rapport with Kaminski. It reminded him of when he’d just got started on the force. Then again, he was old enough to be her father, so they had about as little in common as was possible. Same with Kaminski: the new guard coming up, the ‘fresh blood’ she mentioned. Clarke was old news, old school, old techniques. Just old.
He was done, but life wasn’t done with him yet. He’d had enough, yet there he was, every hour of every day, continuing to exist.
Late shift
On duty: All hands
London.
1974. November.
The Chief Constable in charge of policing the riot turned out to not be an idiot. Ian Burke was almost as old school as Clarke, though the years had worn on him considerably less harshly.
“You sure about this?” he said, observing the advancing crowd through binoculars. “If we don’t cut this off now, we might not have a chance later.”
Clarke shook his head. “They contacted us about the protest. They’ve nominated speakers. We’ve got Ambassador Vahko on the line. It’s all being done by the book.”
Burke stepped back from the elevated guard post. “I’m more worried about them setting the book alight and throwing it at us.” He spoke into his radio, ordering his officers to hold position but allow the protest to proceed.
“If they wanted a fight, they’d fly right at us and do whatever they wanted,” Clarke said. “They’ve got no reason to walk slowly up the street. They’re making a point, not picking a fight.”
Burke sighed. “When the report comes out this will kick off all over again. If Officer Jones is cleared, there’ll be an uproar from every non-human. If he’s found guilty of unlawfully firing his weapon, we’ll have Earth First sending out their troops. It’ll be ugly either way.”
“You’d think Earth First would be happy with being in government and leave it at that.”
“No comment,” Burke said, grimacing.
Clarke found himself staring at Burke’s neck, where his police jacket’s high collar rubbed against the skin. It was standard issue, which meant it might slow down someone with a knife, but he may as well be naked if a koth was coming at him. He thought of Burke standing there, still holding the binoculars up, but a spurting geyser where his head should be. His face rolling around on the ground in the puddles and London dirt like a child’s lost football.
His breathing accelerated. His heart thumped harder. It wasn’t Burke’s face, but Callihan’s, and Clarke was back on the balcony, the koth having smashed through the window and leapt away. One koth, high on etorphine, able to pull a man’s head from his body like plucking a turkey.
The moment the portals had opened, humans had realised their vulnerability. Thousands of years of being the apex predator, gone in an instant. At least on Palinor humans had the potential to wield magic, which somewhat evened the playing field.
Underfoot he could feel the march of hundreds of koth, closing in on Buckingham Palace as they walked The Mall. They’d be surrounded within the next ten minutes. There was no reason for Clarke to be there, on site, in the thick of it. He could withdraw to a quieter spot, out of the way, and still advise over the radio.
Forcing his breathing back to a slower pace, he closed his eyes for a few seconds.
“You alright, Clarke?” It was Holland, who had sidled up beside him. Clarke expected him to follow with an insult, but it never came. Instead, there was a spark of familiarity.
1972. July.
Clarke’s terraced house was small and plain. He’d never been good at saving, but there didn’t seem to be much point in spending his money on furnishings when there was nobody else to appreciate and enjoy them.
He sat in the old, brown leather armchair, the small television in the corner displaying the news broadcast. The newsreader was talking about the death of DC John Callihan, killed in the line of duty by a rampaging koth. No details had yet been released.
Was Zara watching the news? Listening to them talk about her fiancé in the past tense.
It had been a good year. He should have known it was too good to be true; that putting his faith in Callihan, in the idea of things working out, in the concept of optimism, was a mistake.
The metal case sat on the wooden coffee table. Its clasp stared up at him.
He should have taken early retirement when it came up as an option. That would have spared him all this. He wouldn’t have been partnered with Callihan, and wouldn’t have been there for his death. That would have been easier. But he had been afraid of it — of having nothing to do, of idling his days away with nothing and no-one to show for it. The job at the SDC at least gave him a way to spin the hours.
Callihan’s energy had been infuriating and intoxicating in equal measure. A man so convinced of his ability to affect change that he’d even started to convince Clarke. Idiots, both of them. Hope was a trap. It was the trapdoor above a pit, into which he’d now fallen.
Reaching out, he released the clasp on the front of the box and lifted the lid. The revolver lay in its packaging, a cardboard box containing bullets beside it.
It had always been a possibility. He’d toyed with the idea, never really seriously. Probably should have indulged it decades ago. How much did he have to lose, how many failures did he need to endure, before he crossed the threshold? Why was he still bothering? What was the point?
There was no going back. No way to fix what had happened. Lingering on would mean having to live with the knowledge, with the guilt, knowing that he should have been the one to go into that apartment, not Callihan. One decision after another, never knowing the consequences until it was too late.
The wooden handle of the revolver had a comforting warmth. Well-worn, smoothed by the hands of countless police officers over the years. The dark-silver metal was cool to the touch as he flicked open the cylinder. He could put just one bullet in, let fate and chance make the final decision, but fuck that. He began slotting bullets into each of the six chambers. The SDC didn’t have many firing weapons in the locker but they barely saw any use, so signing this one out hadn’t been difficult.
This way it’d be quick, simple, and everybody else could move on with their lives. They wouldn’t have to look at him across the office and offer him reassurances and platitudes, or feel awkward. They wouldn’t have to find him a new partner, with all the associated administrative faff and stress.
It was better this way.
He clicked the cylinder shut.
The doorbell rang.
Sighing, he ignored it.
Again, the doorbell rang.
Swearing under his breath, he placed the gun back on the table and heaved himself up out of the armchair. No doubt someone else’s delivery or a kid kicking a ball over the fence again.
Clarke opened the front door to discover Detective Frank Holland, looking as disgruntled as ever. Not the person he had expected to see.
Holland nodded at him. “You alright, Clarke?” He looked past Clarke, through the open living room door. “Funeral starts in an hour. Come on, I’ll drive you there.”
The march reached the gates of Buckingham Palace without incident, all the koth milling around the memorial statue, most of them still extending back down The Mall. A large squad of police in full riot gear waited inside the gates, behind where Clarke stood. Having them there was of absolutely no comfort whatsoever.
“We have a letter to deliver,” declared a koth at the front, approaching the gates.
Holland smirked. “Does he think this is the post office?”
“Shut up, Holland,” Clarke said. He glanced at Burke, who shrugged.
“By all means, be my guest,” Burke said. “It’s not like the King is going to make an appearance.”
Yannick Clarke would have to do, then. Clarke suppressed a smile as he crossed the palace forecourt to meet the koth representative. It was an especially big and tall koth, even by koth standards, which only became apparent as Clarke drew near.
“I’m DCI Clarke. We appreciate you conducting your march peacefully.”
“Yes,” said the spokesperson, “some of us know how to treat others with respect.”
“Point taken. You have a letter?”
The koth pulled a brown envelope from their jacket and held it out. Clarke stared at the enormous, clawed fingers, reptilian in texture and appearance but with opposable thumbs and shaped like a human’s. He reached through the gates with one arm and accepted the letter. If they wanted to, the koth could slice his arm off with a swipe of that claw.
“Please deliver it to the Commissioner. We have sent copies to parliament, to our local MPs and to the newspapers. We have demands, relating to assurances over our safety. Your police colleagues are not trusted. You know what happens when the police loses the trust of the community.”
“I’ll make sure it reaches him,” Clarke said. “You have another hour until your permit expires. Then you will need to have your people disperse and return to their homes.”
The koth spokesperson looked to one side, at a television news crew filming their exchange. “We’ll be gone. Our message is delivered.”
There were shouts, distant and quiet at first, but growing increasingly loud and close. Both Clarke and the gathered crowd of koth looked to the right of the palace, along Constitution Hill, to the source of the noise. Clarke didn’t have a clear view, but the koth spokesperson was tall enough to see over the heads of their companions.
“Your Earth First friends seem to have arrived at last,” they said, immediately withdrawing to try to calm the other koth.
Shit. Clarke had been afraid of this. The threat had always been from troublemakers on the human end, rather than from the koth contingent. He hurried over to Burke, who was already issuing orders. “What’s happening?”
“Rent-a-mob just arrived,” Burke said. He signalled to his officers, who began moving the riot squad towards the gates. “We need to get in-between them and the koth before this explodes.” He shouted towards the palace guards. “Open the gates!” Speaking into his radio, he called for police at the far end of The Mall to move to the palace.
Clarke kept pace with Burke as he headed to the gates .“Weren’t we watching for this?”
“Of course we were,” Burke snapped, “but someone must have bussed them right in. Probably got a few friendlies on the force to keep quiet until it was too late.”
Following the riot squad, Clarke and Holland stayed at a safe distance — which put them far closer to the koth than the encroaching human mob. The crowd of gathered koth was surging, shifting, moving itself around to face the new threat. There was no way that a gaggle of Earth First hooligans could do much serious damage to them, but it would be enough to escalate the situation. That, in turn, would be enough to turn the papers against the koth. After everything else, it would be the final nail in the coffin for good relations. Clarke could only imagine how it would skew the imminent referendum on portal access.
The riot squad were mostly beyond Clarke’s sight, moving around the koth to create a barrier and hopefully prevent direct conflict between the two parties. That’s when there were more shouts, this time from behind, from the south. Clarke and Holland turned to see a second group of humans emerging from the park and from the direction of the river.
“This looks like trouble,” Holland said. “Times like this I wish we had Golding and his team with us.”
“They got us into this mess in the first place,” Clarke reminded him.
The second group were armed with nail-studded bats, knives, axes — all makeshift and home-made, but nasty enough. Clarke and Holland were outside the protection of the palace gates, sandwiched between the new arrivals and the koth crowd, which was only now becoming aware of the new threat.
“Go back home!” came a shout, then Clarke saw a flash of ignition as something was thrown towards the koth. A bottle, with fire burning from its neck, spinning end over end. It impacted on the crowd, flame splashing from it in a burst. It was close enough for Clarke to feel the heat.
Holland shouted something, then Clarke saw more explosive cocktails arcing through the air. There was a cry of “Justice!” from the Earth First attackers, but Clarke was occupied with the trajectory of one of the flaming bottles as it spun in a perfect arc towards where he was stood with Holland. There was no time to get clear, not with the inevitable spread of fire.
That was it, then.
A dark shape moved above Clarke, a downward gust of wind knocking his feet out from under him. The shape landed in front of him and Holland, massive, blocking out the sky. It was the koth’s spokesperson, their back to Clarke, wings extending to full length, looking for all the world like an enormous bat. The bottle impacted against the koth and fire engulfed them, the heat almost unbearable to Clarke. Tendrils of flame licked around the edges of the koth’s body, but their sheer size shielded the two detectives. The air turned orange and Clarke felt the hairs on his arms crinkle like paper thrown into a fire. He shut his eyes momentarily against the blast.
When he opened them again there were patches of fire on the tarmac around them and the koth was still aflame. They turned around, wings still outstretched. The koth’s clothes were burning away, revealing their towering, muscular, bulky body. As Clarke watched, spikes flicked up along the koth’s arms and legs and their eyes glowed fiercely, while every curve was flecked with fire. They were an incandescent, black phoenix, brighter than the sun.
“Get to safety, detectives,” the koth said, still on fire.
Holland was crouched, open-mouthed, too stunned to say anything.
“Thank you,” was all Clarke managed, as they scrabbled away, through the crowds, towards where Kaminski and Chakraborty were stationed.
As he ran from the blossoming violence, Clarke felt a flicker of hope.
Thank you for reading!
Apologies for the lack of an audio version of this chapter. I’ll aim to get that recorded over the weekend and added in. Update: Audio version now added!
I’ve got some good reading from newsletter land for you today. First up,
noted how a newsletter can start out as a naked promotional effort but turn into something more meaningful:
I found this historical tale from
captivating; inspiring and awful in equal measure, especially given current world events:
Meanwhile,
pinpoints what you need if you’re going to write a fiction serial:
I definitely get that: it takes me about 5-10 chapters to ‘click’ with characters and a setting, during which time I’m quite nervous. A new serial has a period where I’m still figuring it out, and whether I’m going to enjoy it. Triverse was a tricky one for that, as it was so different to anything I’d tried before — but I’m now all-in and loving these characters.
Yesterday we watched the first episode of Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender adaptation. The magic is portrayed brilliantly and the central cast is decent. The locations are lovingly realised. But the first episode feels like an exercise in plot sprinting, racing through the story at an accelerated pace that never leaves time for actual character interactions, or to get a proper sense of place.
It does that thing I’ve mentioned on a few occasions now in relation to streaming shows, of feeling both too fast and too slow at the same time. I was intrigued to see Empire’s review note this exact thing, too. Increasingly I get the feeling that showrunners of streaming shows just don’t get how to tell a serialised story. They’re trapped in a weird limbo between television and cinema. It’s a weird side effect of TV production values closing the gap such that there’s less differentiation between big and small screen presentation, which perhaps disguises that there’s still a huge divide in storytelling requirements.
It also suffers from the same distracting cinematography that seems to pervade streaming shows, where everything is technically impressive but also oddly flat. Lighting on actors is stagey, despite them being perfectly composited into their surroundings. It never feels like any of the actors are actually in a cold place, or actually on a windy clifftop. It’s an increasingly common aesthetic, perhaps driven by Mandalorian-style Volume sets.
The 11 year old loved it, though, and I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes, despite he first episode being a bit clumsy. Mainly, I’m hoping it’ll finally convince the boy to let us watch the original cartoon.
I was excited to be interviewed by
for her ‘8 Questions’ series. She’s got some great participants coming up, so do keep an eye on it over on her newsletter:
Lastly, I’m taking part in a Sci-Fi & Fantasy ebook giveaway, if you fancy enlarging your no doubt already ridiculous to-read pile.
Author notes
Have to admit to being quite pleased with how this chapter turned out. I always had this general turn of events in mind for the story, of the protest turning into a riot, but this specific structure, of hopping in and out of Clarke’s flashbacks, only came together this week. It works, I think, because the action is rooted in character, rather than plot.
A big riot is exciting to read about, sure, but seeing Clarke’s inner struggles and journey in how he regards koth and Callihan’s death is far more engaging.
We’ve always known that Callihan and Lola have had a big impact on Clarke, but this chapter doubles down on that and highlights just how critical they’ve been to his wellbeing. Neither of them realise the positive influence they’ve been, and Clarke hasn’t joined all the dots in his own head, but there it is.
The time hopping in this chapter calls back to earlier moments in the story. We leap all the way back to before the start of the Triverse serial, glimpsing Clarke before he met Callihan (we got a sense of this from the other side in the bonus chapter Callihan’s diary). We also get the fallout from the first proper chapter of the series after the prologue, with Clarke’s reaction slotting in just after the ‘Koth’ opening storyline. Filling in those gaps and recontextualising what we already know is fun, and hopefully satisfying to read.
There’s some good stuff in here for Holland, too. He doesn’t say much or show up, but his appearances are unexpected and telling. He can tell Clarke’s verging on a panic attack at one moment, and intervenes. That then calls back to Clarke’s lowest moment, after Callihan’s death, when Holland again shows up and unceremoniously says the right thing. Pulls Clarke away from the edge. You can assume that Holland went to Clarke’s house deliberately, having worried. Perhaps he even checked the weapon log at the office and saw Clarke had signed out a revolver.
Holland is still an unpleasant man. This isn’t about showing redeeming features. But it does undercut some of what we know about him, and makes him more complex and confounding. It’s hopefully surprising. Given everything we know is going on in the present day of the story, that’s going to be useful.
Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash
Three god-damned universes. 😁
Thank you!