This is my ongoing scifi / fantasy / crime fiction serial. New chapter every week.
The Triverse is
Mid-Earth, an alternate 1980s London
Max-Earth, a vision of the 26th century
Palinor, where magic is real
Previously: The former SDC detectives have pulled off a heist to retrieve Kaenamor’s lost journal. They’re in a spaceship, burning back to Earth as fast as possible, pursued by an AI megaship…
In the Mesosphere. Max-Earth.
2550. March (Earth time).
Lola regretted having part of a two hundred year old journal hidden within the folds of her dress, its weight pushing hard against her chest, compounding the discomfort of tumbling through the Earth’s upper atmosphere in a progressively less functioning spaceship.
A week earlier, she’d never been in a spaceship.
As she was battered by her restraints, as the hull screamed and loose objects ricocheted around the cabin like bullets from a gun, as the temperature rose and alarms sounded, as wires fell from the broken ceiling and lights failed and sparks arced through the darkness, she thought: what brought me to this moment?
They were going to die here. It wouldn’t be her first time. Once, she’d have been petrified, unable to think or act, entirely lost in an unfamiliar ocean far from home. The impossibility of the situation would have overcome her, driven her mad in the moment, the Lola Styles that bounced into the office and got the work done and went to bed early with a good book. That version of her still existed, was still in there, but it was encased in a suit of armour. She’d died once, had been torn apart, and yet she’d continued as something new. The triverse could kill her again, could have the Beagle disintegrate above the planet, or smash into the ground, her body obliterated or crushed or burned, and still she would persevere.
Her only concern was for the others. Above all, she wanted to protect them, but could do nothing but sit and wait, buffeted left and right and up and down.
There was a grinding noise and a shudder, followed by the acute nausea. With no windows or external feeds, there was nothing to indicate what was happening to the ship outside. They were sat in an especially chaotic room, but were blind to what was really happening.
Save for Justin’s informative updates. “We are being fired upon,” they said. “Using the Earth’s atmosphere for deceleration enables us to maintain high speeds while approaching our target landing site, which keeps as much distance between as and Probably Better as possible. Alas, it also points a very bright streak of ionisation at our specific position, and evasive manoeuvring is unwise in this scenario.” A pause. “As such, we have lost the right-most engine and will be unable to land in a properly controlled manner. Please do keep your seatbelts fastened.”
A streak of light, slicing the sky from horizon to horizon. A shooting star, drawing a slender ring of fire around the planet. For the inhabitants of Max-Earth, so used to centuries of quiet and stability, it was a herald of something new and dangerous and unknown.
It was first thought to be a meteor, on an unusually oblique trajectory. On the dark side, away from the sun, it was a blazing strand, so bright as to block out the stars. As it spread, crossing the skies above continents, moving into the daylight, it remained a scar in the heavens, as if the universe itself was being cut by a knife. Some thought it was a continuation of the Joining, a final, apocalyptic rending of space and time, a storm signalling the end of all things.
Children looked up in awe. Scientists and military personnel and air and space traffic control recognised it to be a ship, approaching at unfathomable speeds. A mistake, surely. A pilot malfunction, or a catastrophic engine failure, or someone seeking a dramatic way to end their life. A one-off incident that would be analysed for years to come.
That was before the second trail appeared, alongside and set back, as if chasing the first.
Addis Ababa. Ethiopia.
The new job was in the centre of the city, near the portal station and the cultural subcity. Jiraa was excited to finally be doing something meaningful, having spent most of his twenties travelling the system and wondering what the point of living in the 26th century even was. Then he’d visited a gallery on Mars and it had changed his life.
He was to study at the institute for two years, and would then transition into tour guide and curator. Human guides were paid well, with international and interplanetary visitors paying a premium. Guests from the other side of the portal were different, still having a quaint fascination with automated AI guides. It was the tourist thing to do, but the locals opted for the more boutique approach. Getting onto the training programme wasn’t easy given the competition, but he’d passed the initial tests with high scores. For the first time, it felt like he knew where his life was headed.
On the way to the gallery he walked past a string of cafes and food markets, the smells endlessly tempting despite it being early morning and having only had breakfast half an hour earlier. The ga’at still sat warmly in his stomach. But the street spices grabbed him by the nostrils, urging him to get a snack or a coffee.
While he gazed at a laminated menu fixed to a lamppost outside a cafe, contemplating a small something to keep him going through the morning, he slowly became aware of a repeating sound, an alarm, coming from down the street in the direction of the portal station. His attention shifted begrudgingly from the menu, to see crowds of people streaming from the doors of the station and down the wide, curved steps and paths. They were pouring onto the street, where it looked like police were assembling, forming cordons and directing people to move away from the station.
“What’s going on there?” he said to the man behind the counter, who shrugged and continued to race around his pop-up kitchen.
Jiraa pulled up a news feed. There was indeed an alert for the local area, warning people to evacuate. “Oh, shit,” he said, clicking his fingers in the direction of the cook. “Hey man, I think we need to go.”
Other people on the street nearby were checking their own messages and updates, voices raising and worried glances being shot between strangers. Nobody knew what to do, or whether to take the messages seriously.
A police woman turned the corner and started waving at everyone nearby. “Clear the street, please!” Her voice was amplified via an augmentation, easily heard above the din and chatter of the morning traffic.
Nothing had ever happened like this before, that Jiraa could remember.
The question of what could have provoked such a response in the heart of the city was answered a moment later by a cracking boom that echoed down the street, reverberating off every surface and shattering every window. Glass sprayed into the air, drawing screams from the pedestrians. Vehicles skidded to a stop, an aerial taxi spinning out of control and coming down hard into the side of an office block.
Jiraa had always wondered how he’d react in an emergency situation. If a natural disaster struck. He’d always thought he’d freeze, or run, and be generally terrified and a bit useless.
He did run, towards the crashed taxi.
It had landed on its side, its engines still pulsing beneath and blasting debris back inside the building. He was moving carefully over exposed steel and shattered brick when there was another boom, much louder this time, and he turned to face the direction everyone was pointing.
A ship was coming down. Not a taxi, or some other flying car. An actual spaceship, a huge thing, wide and long and looking like it had already taken a battering. It was glowing red, flame gushing from one side, a billowing plume of black smoke arcing back up into the sky. It came upon them in seconds, clipping the side of a tall building, drifting sideways, then crunching down onto the tarmac, where it skidded along, pushing parked vehicles out of its way, pulling down cables and lights and dragging market stalls in its wake. The noise was cacophonous, Jiraa feeling as if his ears would burst. It kept scraping along, ripping up the road, as if it would barrel right into the portal station itself at the far end.
After what seemed like an age, it came to rest, rocking back into an awkward position like a whale on a beach.
From the taxi came a cry for help. He forced his attention back and climbed onto its top, which was in fact its side. The door was misshapen and reluctant to open, but his combined efforts with the people inside got it to surrender. They were a family: parents and a young daughter. Bloodied, bashed up, but able to walk. Jiraa crouched and helped them out of the upturned taxi, the mother hugging him on her way.
He turned back to the crashed ship. An incongruous silence had fallen on the street. Those people still standing to the edges, who had flattened themselves against walls or dived inside shops to evade the crash, were starting to move, dazed, confused.
Fire continued to belch from one of the ship’s engines. He’d never seen a ship so beaten up. It was a miracle it had landed at all, rather than disintegrating on its way down.
There might be survivors. Jiraa started running down the street, towards the crash site and the portal station.
Meanwhile.
I’ve worked at digital agency One Further1 for the last three years, working with various museums, galleries and performing arts venues. It’s been great, but time had come for a change, with Wednesday being my last day. Next week I start a new job at the Creative Industries Policy & Evidence Centre (Creative PEC for short), which I know sounds extremely serious — it’s a body that recommends policy relating to the creative industries based on extensive research, and cuts across film, literature, video games, music and so on. All of my favourite things!
Should be exciting. And it feels like the creative industries in the UK need all the support they can get, especially as we dive headfirst into the latest Trump-induced global disaster.
Talking of which, we’re only a couple of days into the new US tariffs. I’m not yet clear on how they’re going to affect digital services, including the systems I use to run this newsletter. Definitely one to keep a close eye on. One thing is for sure: any independent creators who run Kickstarters for producing physical items, such as books or board games or comics, are going to have a really rough time of it in the coming months and years. I’ve been pondering for a while whether to do a Kickstarter for a fancy edition of the complete Tales from the Triverse once it is complete, but that idea is no on hold. We might see entire swathes of indie creativity disappear, at least if they’re based in the US. Hope I’m wrong on that one.
So, really, it comes down to this: if you have the means to support your favourite artists, please do. This is all going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
ON A MORE POSITIVE NOTE, last night I attended an event at Dragon Hall here in Norwich all about the First Graphic Novel Award. I’m not in the comics world, but am a keen observer from the outside, and it was invigorating to be in a room surrounded by comics artists and writers, with a panel of experts discussing what defines a graphic novel (sequential panels and, almost always, thought/speech bubbles, if you’re wondering).
I’ve not-so-secretly always wanted to make a comic. I’ve written scripts for a few, but my illustration skills have never been up to the task. The wonderful Woodrow Phoenix2 was on the panel last night and spoke about how you don’t need to create the best art in order to make a good graphic novel. In fact, especially good art can distract, because you start paying attention to the image instead of the story. The art of a comic needs to be good enough to support the story. Average art in service of a great story will still result in a great graphic novel. Stunning art in service of a mediocre story isn’t going to save it.
Anyway. Tales from the Triverse is where I’m at currently. But once it wraps up, I may turn my attention towards having a go at a short comic. That would be fun.
Lastly, over on my other newsletter I wrote two and a half thousand words about Naruto. Check it out if that’s your sort of thing:
Author notes
I’m intentionally vague about Max-Earth personal tech. Jiraa receives updates and news, as do the people around him, but I don’t describe how exactly that’s working. Clarke had a wrist-worn device a few stories back, and noted how he turned down the opportunity to have an implant.
The problem is that this is precisely the kind of tech that is almost impossible to predict. A lot of pre-2000s science fiction set in the future now seems a bit odd for not including mobile communications devices. Pre-1990s science fiction often did not predict the rise or impact of the internet.
Bigger, more obviously dramatic technologies like spaceships are easier to extrapolate. But a personal comms and information device? Is it going to be handheld, a watch, an eye implant, a neural brain link, a contact lens, etc etc. It’s also not very important to the story I’m telling, which is why it ends up being a background detail: Jiraa and other citizens of Max-Earth have the technology, but the device specifics don’t matter.
Talking of Jiraa: I thought it would be fun to hop into a random guest star narrator. I’ve done this a few times in Triverse (like when the kengto attempted the museum and we saw it from the point of view of a dad visiting with his kids), and the intention is to re-ground the story and the stakes in the real world. Keeping the POV always on our ‘heroes’ risks drifting away from the ‘real’ world, and away from normal people. Which then leads to Superhero Syndrome, when it all becomes a bit navel gazing and internal, with superheroes only interacting with other superheroes.
It’s a bit like the Bechdel test. But rather than a test for the agency of female characters, it’s a check to see if the story is still connecting to real people and real stakes.
Hence, we have Jiraa, on his way to a new job (hey, a bit like me!), and getting caught up in the Beagle’s crash landing. It also serves to take us outside of the ship, and to see the damage it’s doing to the city, rather than being stuck inside with the SDC gang. It gives me a useful guest character for the remainder of this storyline, who can now bounce off our regulars and the events that are unfolding.
And, yes, the bit about human tour guides being highly paid and more valued than their AI equivalents did make me chuckle.
If you work at an arts or cultural organisation and need some digital work, drop them a line. They are an excellent and very skilled bunch.
Why do I not have a name like Woodrow Phoenix? WHY?
Ok, the SECOND streak - I was not expecting Probably Better to enter atmosphere. I guess they've decided stopping the SDC crew is worth breaking cover. That's bad. I mean, I'd already figured they could do orbital bombardment, which is bad enough, but if they're going low... Again, I see possibilities for action, ranging from just shooting up the portal station at close range to dropping a strike team of shard bodies. That's before getting clever with the thinking.
Speaking of possibilities, Justin just powering along despite taking hits was my low probability option. That said, you've been vague about tech, which includes weapons, so we don't know if Probably Better was using (singly, or in combination), lasers, plasma, particle beams, dumb projectiles (kinetic weapons from chemical propellant to Gauss acceleration, or beyond), smart projectiles (including missiles), or something else. I can see how a turbulence and plasma wake would counteract the giant arrow. The wake makes the targeting easy, but I'd assume the continuous shifting of turbulence and temperature gradient caused by roiling plasma is something even a quantum AI can't compute and compensate for, and you don't need much deflection to turn a cabin-hitting shot into an engine hitting shot. Pretend I dropped in a few more paragraphs of example case-by-case. I'll spare you the tedium.
Excellent decision to jump into a new random bystander! Besides managing to make the dude instantly likable, it's a good shift to show the collateral damage a supersonic re-entry can do to nearby population centers, as well as, in general, getting the "camera" somewhere that isn't a close up on a protagonist. So... I guess I agree with your author's note.
Congrats on the new job. *Runs off to read about CPEC* Do you remote in or commute? Given the Global team I'll assume remote.